Europe

MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/: The second Angara-A5 heavy carrier missile is scheduled for delivery to Plesetsk Cosmodrome (Arkhangelsk Region) in March-April this year, says Alexey Varochko, Director of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, the maker of the missile.

"We have a goal: March-April - the machine [Angara-A5] goes to the Cosmodrome," Varochko told Russian Veterans Union and Russian Military Commanders Club during their visit to the Center.

MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/: Ukraine should engage representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) in negotiations over reinstating Ukraine’s control over the Russian-Ukrainian border section in Donbass, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday, when asked if control over the Russian-Ukrainian border in Donbass can be passed over to Kiev in exchange for resuming water supply to Crimea from Ukraine.

MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/: Turkey has sent additional troops to Syria, Sky News Arabia reported on Wednesday, citing sources.

According to the TV channel, Turkish troops crossed the Syrian border at dawn, heading for the western areas of the Aleppo province. Sky News Arabia added that Turkish troops were establishing an observation point on a road connecting the Atarib and Al-Jinah settlements.

MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/: There can be no bargaining over Crimea, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, when asked if Moscow could return control over the Russian-Ukrainian border in Donbass to Kiev to make sure that Ukraine resumed water supplies to Crimea.

Peskov pointed out that Crimea was a Russian region where water was supplied in accordance with development programs. "If there are any initiatives concerning additional water supplies, perhaps commercial ones, they could be considered," the Kremlin spokesman added.

MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/: Viktor Sviridov, a former head of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service’s motor transport department has committed suicide in Moscow’s Chertanovsky Court after a judge handed down a guilty verdict in his case, the emergency services informed TASS.

"After the guilty verdict was handed down, Sviridov committed suicide. He died on the spot," TASS was told.

12 Feb 2020; MEMO: Arab ambassadors accredited to the United Kingdom called on the British government to reject the Deal of the Century, as it does not fulfil the minimum legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and constitutes a clear violation of United Nations resolutions and international law.

12 Feb 2020; MEMO: The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, urged Israel on Tuesday not to annex the Jordan Valley, a large swathe of the occupied West Bank, warning of Palestinian protests if it went ahead.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, whose Fine Gael party came a narrow third in national elections at the weekend, said that while the poll had transformed politics, there was an obligation on all parties to deliver political stability.

The left-wing Sinn Fein Irish nationalist party surprisingly secured the most votes, marginally ahead of the center-right Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, with weeks of negotiations likely needed to cobble together a majority in a fractured parliament.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) signaled on Wednesday they could quit their coalition with Angela Merkel’s conservatives if she is forced out as chancellor, piling pressure on their partners to avoid a snap election as they pick a new leader.

After Merkel’s protegee Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer gave up her ambitions for the top job on Monday, the Christian Democrats (CDU) are embarking on choosing a new leader and chancellor candidate for the next federal election due by Oct. 2021.

THE HAGUE, Feb 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Dutch farm ministry has ordered all commercial poultry farmers should keep their birds confined indoors as of midnight on Tuesday following reports of a German outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N8 bird flu virus.

The measures are to ensure that Dutch commercial poultry do not catch the disease from potentially infected wild birds from neighbouring Germany, the ministry said in a press release.