Europe

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The group behind Nord Stream 2 said on Saturday it aimed to complete a pipeline to boost Russian gas supplies to Europe as soon as possible, after a major contractor suspended pipe-laying activities due to U.S. sanctions.

A U.S. bill signed by Donald Trump on Friday included legislation imposing sanctions on companies laying pipe for Nord Stream 2, the project that aims to double gas capacity along the northern Nord Stream 1 pipeline route to Germany.

PARIS, Dec 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Cancelled trains, packed roads, frazzled nerves: Travellers scrambled across France on Friday to begin Christmas vacations upended by a weeks-long transport strike over a pensions overhaul that unions have vowed to defeat.

Hopes of a holiday truce were dashed after talks between the government and union leaders this week failed to ease the standoff, with train operator SNCF warning of massive cancellations ahead of the holidays.

BEIJING/BRUSSELS, Dec 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Beijing on Friday accused the European Parliament of hypocrisy, after a resolution called for targeted sanctions against Chinese officials over the treatment of the Uighur minority.

China has faced international condemnation for rounding up an estimated one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities in internment camps in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

RAMALLAH, Palestine, Dec 21 (NNN-WAFA) – Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, hailed the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to open the way for the Palestinians to sue Israel.

He made the remarks at an ongoing session attended by members of the revolutionary council of his Fatah party, in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

“This is a historic day, and now any Palestinian who gets injured by the occupier (Israel), can file a case to the criminal court,” said Abbas.

MOSCOW, Dec 21 (NNN-TASS) – A Russian shipyard will deliver five nuclear-powered submarines to the Russian Navy in 2020, Mikhail Budnichenko, chief executive officer of the shipyard, said, in an interview published on Friday (yesterday).

The Sevmash Shipyard is preparing to deliver the latest fourth-generation ballistic missile carriers, Prince Vladimir and Prince Oleg, Budnichenko said.

The list also includes the Belgorod special mission submarine, and the Kazan and Novosibirsk cruise missile submarines, he said.

MOSCOW, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- Moscow no longer wishes to rejoin the Group of Seven (G7) as it has other priorities, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Friday.

There are other platforms where serious issues are being addressed, including the G20, formats for Eurasian integration and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), he said at a seminar of the Valdai Discussion Club think tank.

ZAGREB, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- Foreign ministers of the Adriatic Trilateral countries on Friday agreed on more initiatives for the enlargement of the European Union (EU) and the cooperation of southeast European countries with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

At the fourth thematic meeting held in Croatian coastal city Zadar, foreign ministers of Croatia, Montenegro and Albania were joined by their counterpart from North Macedonia as guest.

20 Dec 2019; MEMO: Britain’s newly elected Conservative government has confirmed it will proceed with banning “institutions across the public sector” including local councils from boycotting Israel, as promised in the party’s election manifesto.

London, Dec 20 (AFP/PTI) Britain's freshly-elected parliament prepared on Friday to move past years of partisan wrangling and initially approve Prime Minister Boris Johnson's divorce deal with the EU.

The all-but-certain outcome in the lower House of Commons will help Johnson on his way towards meeting his winning campaign promise to "get Brexit done" on January 31.

But it will also push London and Brussels closer to another cliff edge at the end of 2020 that might disrupt decades of unfettered trade.

BRUSSELS, Dec 20 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A Brussels court found a former Rwandan official guilty of genocide after hearing of his role in the 1994 massacres in his country.

Fabien Neretse, who protested his innocence, is the first person to be convicted in Belgium on such a charge and he now faces a possible life sentence.

The 71-year-old agricultural scientist was also convicted of “war crimes” for 11 killings in Rwanda, under Belgium’s code of universal jurisdiction for the most serious offences.