Europe

22 February 2020; AFP: An EU summit called to set the bloc's next seven-year budget ended in impasse late Friday, riven by competing groups among the 27 member states and pressure to fill a funding gap left by Brexit.

Differences were "still too great to reach an agreement," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters at the end of the two days of talks in Brussels.

No date had yet been set for another summit to try again, but Merkel added that "we are going to have to return to the subject".

(Reuters) - London police said on Friday that they had charged a 29-year-old man in the stabbing of a prayer leader at a mosque in Park Road.

Daniel Horton, charged with section 18 GBH and possession of a bladed article, is due to appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Feb. 22, Police said here

HANAU, Germany (AP) — Gokhan Gultekin’s juggling act was in many ways typical of Hanau’s Turkish community: taking care of frail parents, hustling to work at a late-night cafe, making some cash on the side at a second job and attending Friday prayers at the mosque across town.

On Friday, Gultekin’s friends mourned him at his house of worship, two days after “Gogo” was killed in a racially motivated shooting rampage that shook Germany and prompted fresh calls for a crackdown on far-right extremism and anti-immigrant scapegoating.

MOSCOW, February 21. /TASS/: Russia’s Khrunichev Space Center has built a Proton-M carrier rocket to deliver the Nauka (Science) multi-functional laboratory module to the International Space Station (ISS), Head of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said on Friday.

"The Proton for this launch has already been built and I am confident that the multi-functional laboratory module will fly [to the International Space Station]," Rogozin said at the 11th international conference of the Russian Association of Aviation and Space Insurers.

MOSCOW, February 21. /TASS/: A military court of Moscow ruled on Friday to sentence in absentia former Defense Minister of Ukraine Anatoly Gritsenko to a six-year prison term after he was found guilty of calling for terrorist attacks on the territory of Russia.

"The court took into account arguments of both sides, found Gritsenko guilty of violating Article 205.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and ruled to sentence him in absentia to a 6-year term in a standard regime penal colony," Judge Daniil Logachev said as he announced the verdict.

MOSCOW, February 21. /TASS/: The Kremlin expects that as the US presidential election approaches, there will be an increasing number of reports about Russia’s alleged attempts to interfere in the vote, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, commenting on a New York Time article claiming that Moscow "was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected."

21 Feb 2020; MEMO: A Yemeni lawyer has won the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for 2020 in recognition of her efforts to uncover a network of secret prisons run by the UAE in southern Yemen where prisoners are held and tortured without legal grounds.

Huda Al-Sarari, 42, received her award in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/: Turkey's support for militants who tried to attack positions of Syrian government forces in Idlib represents a violation of the agreements between Moscow and Ankara, Russian Foreign Ministry's official spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in response to a question about terrorists' attacks at positions of the Syrian government forces in Idlib. Zakharova's response was published on the official website of the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday.

MOSCOW, February 21. /TASS/: Russia’s MiG Aircraft Company (part of the United Aircraft-Building Corporation) has patented a system of a fighter jet’s automatic approach for landing in adverse weather conditions for MiG-29M/M2 and MiG-35 aircraft, the Company’s press office announced on Friday.

MOSCOW, February 21. /TASS/: Russian oil producers suggested a new pricing formula to Belarus, where the exporters’ premium is reduced by $2/tonne annually in proportion to the export duty decline, Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters on Friday.

"An approach was offered that addresses the export duty reduction, that is, slashing the premium by approximately $2 per tonne every year, in proportion to the export duty decline. This will make possible to partly compensate the effect from the export duty reduction," the minister said.