Europe

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia accused Azerbaijan of firing missiles into the capital of the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday, while Azerbaijan said several of its towns and its second-largest city were attacked.

Iran, which borders both countries, said it was working on a peace plan for the decades-old conflict, which reignited last month and has killed scores of people on both sides.

GENEVA (AP) — The head of emergencies at the World Health Organization said Monday the agency’s “best estimates” indicate roughly 1 in 10 people worldwide may have been infected by the coronavirus — more than 20 times the number of confirmed cases — and warned of a difficult period ahead.

MOSCOW, October 5. /TASS/: Russia will respond to possible additional restrictions on the access of its goods to the EU market, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. He was speaking at a meeting with the members of the Association of European Businesses (AEB).

Lavrov recalled that the European Commission had prepared a report on significant distortions in the economy of the Russian Federation for the purpose of trade defense investigations.

MOSCOW, October 5. /TASS/: Russian scientists may prepare several own missions for exploration of Venus, Scientific Director of the Russian Space Research Institute Lev Zeleny said at the Eleventh Moscow Solar System Symposium.

"Earlier we talked about only one mission, "Venera-D", now Roscosmos recommends that we move ahead. Taking into account the importance of Venus for science, we may have several missions to Venus. We are discussing it now, there may be two or even three of them," he said.

MOSCOW, October 5. /TASS/: The US-proposed conditions for extension of the Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START treaty) are unilateral, do not take Russia’s interests into account and will lead to the ‘death’ of the agreement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday.

MOSCOW, October 5. /TASS/: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday he is unaware of any discussion among the authorities of repeat introduction of a self-isolation regime, despite rising COVID-19 incidence.

"As for the lockdown, I have heard no such discussions," the spokesman said.

According to the spokesman, the introduction of self-isolation will be discussed not in the Kremlin, but in a government headquarters, anyway.

MOSCOW, October 5. /TASS/: The number of COVID-19 infections in Russia over the past 24 hours increased by 10,888, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Monday. According to TASS calculations, this is the highest growth since May 12.

The relative growth is at 0.9%.

LONDON, Oct 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Four men are due to go on trial in Britain on Monday in connection with the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants whose bodies were found in a lorry in southeast England.

The grim discovery of 31 men and eight women inside the container truck on an industrial estate east of London last year threw fresh light on the plight of migrants desperate to reach Britain.

A post-mortem examination found the victims – 10 of them teenagers, including two 15-year-old boys – died from lack of oxygen and overheating in the refrigerated lorry.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Services for mentally ill and substance abuse patients have been disrupted worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the disease is expected to cause further distress for many, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

Only 7% of the 134 countries responding to the WHO’s survey

reported that all mental health services were fully open, with 93% reporting curtailed services for various disorders, it said.

ATHENS (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O is to build a new data centre in Greece as it invests in cloud services infrastructure in the country, a boon to an economy weakened by a decade-long debt crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking at a virtual event in Athens on Monday, Microsoft President Brad Smith said the new data centre would be beneficial to business, consumers and banks.

The size of the investment was not disclosed.