Europe

LONDON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Britain’s economy grew at its slowest annual pace in nearly seven years in October, offering a weak backdrop to Thursday’s national election in which both leading parties are promising to boost growth.

The approach of a Brexit deadline and the global economic slowdown hit Britain’s factories and construction industry in the month, official data showed on Tuesday.

PRAGUE (Reuters) - The suspect in a shooting at a hospital in the eastern Czech city of Ostrava on Tuesday has killed himself, Czech Television reported, citing Interior Minister Jan Hamacek.

MADRID, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Karl-Heinz Lambertz, president of the European Committee of the Regions, said on Monday that the European Green Deal, which will be unveiled this week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid, needs to be ambitious, realistic and have the resources to make it work.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The U.N.’s highest court on Tuesday begins a hearing into allegations of genocide in Myanmar over the military campaign against the Rohingya minority, with leader Aung San Suu Kyi set to defend those who once held her under house arrest.

Myanmar’s military began a harsh counterinsurgency campaign against the Rohingya in August 2017 in response to an insurgent attack. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape what has been called an ethnic cleansing campaign involving mass rapes, killings and the torching of homes.

PARIS (AP) — The presidents of Ukraine and Russia agreed Monday to revive the peace process on the bloody separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine and exchange all their prisoners, but they failed to resolve crucial issues such as a timeline on local elections and control of the borders in the rebel-held region.

KIRUNA, Sweden (AP) — Thick reindeer fur boots and a fur hat covering most of his face shielded Niila Inga from minus 20-degree Celsius (minus 4-degree Fahrenheit) winds as he raced his snowmobile up to a mountain top overlooking his reindeer in the Swedish arctic.

His community herds about 8,000 reindeer year-round, moving them between traditional grazing grounds in the high mountains bordering Norway in the summer and the forests farther east in the winter, just as his forebears in the Sami indigenous community have for generations.

PRAGUE (AP) — Six people were killed in a shooting in a hospital in the eastern Czech Republic Tuesday, the prime minister said.

Police initially said the shooter was at large. Video footage and pictures published by public radio later showed police arresting a person at the site but police didn’t immediately confirm that it was the suspect.

Prime Minister Andrej Babis told Czech public television the shooting took place in a waiting room. The attacker opened fire at people’s heads from close range, Babis said.

He said he is heading for the site.

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/: The personnel of Bastion and Bal coastal defense missile systems are delivering strikes against enemy naval targets in Crimea drills, the press office of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet reported on Monday.

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/: Russia has put forward an idea of establishing a forum on international cooperation in countering corruption in sports under the United Nations’ auspices, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov said in a special column for TASS on occasion of International Anti-Corruption Day observed on Monday.

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/: The Northern Fleet will arm all its Arctic battalions with S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems in coming years to create an air defense dome over the Russian Arctic, Fleet Commander Vice-Admiral Alexander Moiseyev said in an interview with the Defense Ministry’s Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper on Monday.