Europe

MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/: The Iskander missile system of Russia’s Western Military District has helped to repel a conventional enemy’s attack with weapons of mass destruction at drills in the southern Astrakhan Region, the district said in a statement on Saturday.

"During the exercise involving the Iskander system, service members drilled at a training ground in the Astrakhan Region how to repel a massive attack on a convoy by the ‘adversary’s’ unidentified armed groups who use weapons of mass destruction," the statement says.

MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/: Kiev has not formally put forward any new initiatives regarding the deployment of a UN mission in the Donbass, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS on Sunday.

He was commenting on the words of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadim Pristaiko.

On Saturday, Pristaiko said that Kiev could return to the idea of a UN contingent deployment to the areas in Donbass that are out of Ukraine’s control in case Ukraine’s leadership admits that the conflict fails to yield any result based on the Minsk accords.

MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/: The Russian and Ukrainian Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky, have started dialogue, but they have failed to come to terms on a whole range of issues so far, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Bolshaya Igra (Big Game) TV program on Russia’s Channel One.

"Putin and Zelensky have started talking to each other. However, they are far from reaching an agreement on a whole range of issues, they are using different terms," Peskov said.

SEVASTOPOL, December 15. /TASS/: A decommissioned B-380 submarine of the Black Sea Fleet that earlier sank with a floating dock off Sevastopol has risen to the surface and is afloat, a source in the city’s emergencies services told TASS on Sunday.

"Tonight a floating dock PD-16 with a decommissioned submarine B-380 sank in Sevastopol’s Yuzhnaya Bay. The submarine has broken surface and is afloat," the source said.

The submarine might have sunk due to the technical condition of the dock, which could not be repaired.

15 December 2019; AFP: Tensions between the French government and unions opposed to pension reforms mounted Sunday as a crippling transport strike entered its 11th day.

The overhaul, unveiled this week by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, would do away with the 42 separate pension systems -- some of which offer early retirement and other benefits to public-sector employees such as train drivers, dockers and even Paris Opera employees.

(Reuters) - The top priority of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is to leave the European Union on Jan. 31 and secure a new trade deal with the EU by the end of next year, cabinet office minister Michael Gove said on Sunday.

After the Conservatives were re-elected last week with a majority of 80 seats, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will pursue twin priorities in government - to fulfill his promise to “get Brexit done” and plough money into Britain’s health service.

LONDON (Reuters) - Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, warned Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday that he could not keep Scotland in the United Kingdom against the country’s will.

Johnson and his government have repeatedly said they will not give the go ahead for another referendum on Scottish independence, but Sturgeon said after the Scottish National Party won 48 of Scotland’s 59 seats in the UK parliament, her party had been given a mandate for one.

MILAN (Reuters) - Around 54,000 people were evacuated from the southern Italian city of Brindisi on Sunday as experts worked to defuse a World War Two bomb, authorities said.

Corriere della Sera daily said the operation was the biggest peacetime evacuation in Italy, with more than 60% of the city’s residents forced to vacate a “red zone” in a radius of 1,617 meters from where the bomb was found.

LONDON (Reuters) - John McDonnell, Labour’s finance policy chief, accepted the blame on Sunday for the main opposition party’s election “disaster” last week when many traditional supporters switched to back Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

“Let me make it clear that it’s on me. Let’s take it on the chin. I own this disaster,” McDonnell told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson intends to bring back Brexit legislation to parliament before Christmas, deputy finance minister Rishi Sunak said on Sunday, adding that shortly thereafter the government would present a new budget.

“The overriding mandate that we have from this election is to get Brexit done ...We will leave the European Union in a matter of weeks, by the end of January. Our intention is to bring the Withdrawal Bill, the legislation, back to parliament before Christmas,” Sunak told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.