Europe

PODGORICA, March 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Thousands of people, led by Serbian Orthodox Church clerics, marched peacefully through the Montenegrin capital Podgorica on Saturday in protest against a law they fear will be used to target the church’s assets and status.

VATICAN CITY, March 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Pope Francis, who has been suffering from what the Vatican says is a “slight indisposition,” resumed official audiences with individuals in his residence on Saturday but three with groups were cancelled.

A statement said the pope, who had cancelled most official audiences on Thursday and Friday, celebrated his customary early morning Mass in the chapel of the Santa Marta guest house where he lives.

BRATISLAVA, March 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Slovak voters handed a resounding victory to the centre-right, anti-graft OLaNO opposition party in Saturday’s general election, dominated by an angry backlash over the 2018 murder of a journalist probing corruption in the eurozone state.

GENEVA, February 28. /TASS/: More than 20 vaccines are being developed across the world, and the first results are expected in a few weeks, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing on Friday.

"More than 20 vaccines are in development globally, and several therapeutics are in clinical trials," he said adding that the first results were expected "in a few weeks."

MOSCOW, February 29. /TASS/: The member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) welcome the international community’s efforts to settle the situation in Afghanistan, including the US-initiated talks with the Taliban militant group (outlawed in Russia), the CSTO said in a statement posted on the website of Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday.

The document stresses that there is no alternative to settling the situation in Afghanistan by political and diplomatic means.

MOSCOW, January 29. /TASS/: The Russian Pantsir-S air defense missile system took down some 100 drones around the world over the course of its service, says Valery Slugin - the chief air defense designer KBP JSC, a division of Rostec’s High Precision Weapons JSC.

"About one hundred, maybe more," Slugin said in interview for TASS. "That includes Syria and other regions."

Slugin reminded that there are two Pantsir divisions deployed in Syria: the Russian one, located at Hmeimim airbase, and a Syrian one.

29 February 2020; AFP: Thousands rallied in central Moscow on Saturday to call on President Vladimir Putin not to stay in power indefinitely, in the first major protest by the Russian opposition since the Kremlin chief announced controversial plans to change the constitution.

The rally marked five years since the assassination of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov but its organisers also want the event to send a message to Putin after he proposed major constitutional changes.

LONDON (Reuters) - Former British finance minister Sajid Javid said he would have cut income tax cut if he had not resigned this month after a clash with Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Javid told The Times newspaper the centerpiece of next month’s budget would have been a cut from April in the basic rate of income tax to 18 pence in the pound, from 20 pence, and he had plans to reduce the basic rate to 15 pence from 2025.

ROME (Reuters) - The governor of Veneto, one of the regions worst hit by an outbreak in Italy of coronavirus, apologized on Saturday for criticizing China over the contagion and saying Chinese people “eat live mice”.

Luca Zaia has pinned the blame on China for the flare-up in Italy, which has led to at least 21 deaths, saying that unlike Italians, the Chinese did not have good standards of hygiene.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s top government official in the ministry responsible for policing and counter-terrorism resigned on Saturday, saying there had been an orchestrated campaign to remove him.

Philip Rutnam quit after reports of tensions between him and Home Secretary Priti Patel, including allegations she mistreated officials. Patel has denied the allegations against her.

Rutnam, who has worked the government for 33 years, took the unusual step of making a statement outside his home alleging Patel was behind the campaign to oust him.