Europe

SKOPJE, September 22. /TASS/: A total of 297 aftershocks have struck Albania over the past 24 hours, with 87 of them recorded overnight to Sunday, North Macedonia’s Media Information Agency reported.

The first 5.8-magnitude earthquake was reported in several Albanian settlements on Saturday afternoon. The hardest-hit areas were Albania’s capital of Tirana, Durres, Pogrades, Fier and a number of cities in southwestern North Macedonia. The citizens of Tirana and Durres spent this night in the streets and in six accommodation centers.

MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/: Russia’s Kalibr cruise missile was finetuned after it had been used during the campaign in Syria, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in his interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets published on Sunday.

The minister noted that an instruction to finetune the Kalibr missile had been given by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Shoigu explained that earlier it "took so long to upload a flight mission for the Kalibr missile that a target could be missed." "Today it takes much less to upload a flight mission for Kalibr," the minister said.

MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/: British citizen Charlie Rowley, who was allegedly exposed to Novichok nerve agent in Amesbury last summer, is planning to sue the Russian state and demand a compensation of 1 mln pound sterling ($1.25 mln), The Mirror newspaper reported citing his lawyer Patrick Maguire.

MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/: The United States’ belief in its own superiority could lead to various unreasonable ideas, posing a major threat to Russia and other states, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in his interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets published on Sunday.

"When you think - as the United States continues to believe so by inertia - that the balance of power has developed in your favor, various ideas may come to your head, including unreasonable ones. I consider this situation now as the main threat, and not only for Russia," Shoigu said.

TASS, September 22: Russian sailors, who were kidnapped by pirates in Cameroon in mid-August, will come back home soon, Russia’s Embassy in Cameroon confirmed on its Facebook page on Sunday.

According to the Seafarers’ Union of Russia, the freed Russian sailors are now in Hamburg.

"The Russian sailors, who were taken hostage by pirates off Cameroon on August 15, have been released. This was confirmed by the employer company. Now they are in Germany and they will soon return home," the statement said.

BRIGHTON, England (Reuters) - EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said he is convinced Brexit will happen, reiterating that if Britain left the European Union without a deal there would be a new border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

“I’m convinced that Brexit will happen,” he told Sky News in an interview last week, before he had seen the ideas Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government sent to Brussels to try to push Brexit talks forward.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will accept the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on whether the government’s decision to suspend parliament was lawful, foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Sunday.

“Of course we will respect whatever the legal ruling is from the Supreme Court, whether it’s tomorrow or later in the week,” Raab told the BBC.

BRIGHTON, England (Reuters) - British opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Sunday his party would guide him on how to campaign in a second Brexit referendum, pledging to offer voters a choice between staying in the European Union and a “credible” deal.

At the start of Labour’s annual conference in the English seaside resort of Brighton, Corbyn was again under pressure by party members and even some of his top team to unequivocally back remaining in the EU in any new vote.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will present a plan for creating security in the Gulf in cooperation with other countries in the region when he attends the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week.

Saudi Arabia and the United States accuse Iran of attacking Saudi oil facilities on Sept. 14, the biggest such assault on the world’s top oil exporter.

Iran denies involvement in the attack, which was claimed by Yemen’s Houthi movement, a group aligned with Iran and currently fighting a Saudi-led alliance in Yemen’s civil war.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The chief executive of the Swedish firm which owns the Stena Impero, the British-flagged tanker detained by Tehran on July 19, said he had been informed that the vessel may be released later on Sunday.

Erik Hanell, chief executive of Stena Bulk, was speaking to the Swedish public broadcaster SVT: “We have received information now this morning that it seems like they will release the ship Stena Impero within a few hours. So we understand that the political decision to release the ship has been taken.”