Europe

Tirana, Sep 21; AFP/GANASHAKTI:  Albania was rattled by its strongest earthquake in decades Saturday, officials said, sending people fleeing into the streets in several cities, damaging buildings and triggering power cuts in the capital.

The epicentre of the shallow 5.6-magnitude quake, was near Durres, less than 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of the capital Tirana, according to the US Geological Survey.

Albania's defence ministry said it was the "strongest earthquake in the country in the last 20 to 30 years".

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek police said Saturday they have arrested a suspect in the 1985 hijacking of a flight from Athens that became a multi-day ordeal and included the slaying of an American.

Police said a 65-year-old suspect in the hijacking was arrested Thursday on the island of Mykonos in response to a warrant from Germany.

MOSCOW, September 21. /TASS/: A simplified version of Russia’s combined system of communications, data exchange, navigation and identification (OSNOD), which is now undergoing trials as part of the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jet, is now being developed for drones, the developer said on Saturday.

"We are now carrying out a wide range of works to adapt the system for various carriers, including unmanned systems," Alexei Ratner, the head of the Polet science and technical center of the Russian Electronics holding (part of Rostec state corporation), told TASS.

MOSCOW, September 21. /TASS/: Russia will have to carry out additional analysis of threats to national security and strategic stability with regard to US plans to arm its military forces with short-and medium-range missiles as soon as possible, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The statement comes in response to the Department of State’s report, headlined Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Compliance Report), released on Friday.

MOSCOW, September 21. /TASS/: A toy unicorn will be used as a zero-gravity indicator aboard the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft, which will depart to the International Space Station on September 25, Russian cosmonaut and mission commander Oleg Skripochka said.

Skripochka earlier said the zero gravity indicator will be chosen by his children.

MOSCOW, September 21. /TASS/: The trials of the descent capsule of Russia’s next-generation partially reusable Orel spacecraft (formerly known as Federatsiya) will be held in the second half of 2020, a source in Russia’s rocket and space industry told TASS.

"Tests related to the Orel spacecraft descent module’s landing are planned to take place in the second half of 2020," the source said, without specifying how long those trials may take.

KIEV, September 20. /TASS/: Ukraine’s state-run defense concern Ukroboronprom is considering the possibility of selling the unfinished Ukraina missile cruiser, currently kept at the Nikolayev Shipyard, the company’s press service said.

"There’s no need for Ukraine to have a cruiser of this size, that’s why we will consider the possibility of selling this cruiser. We will build new ships: of a smaller size but in bigger numbers, according to the needs of our armed forces," the press service quoted Ukroboronprom head Aivaras Abromavicius as saying in an interview with DW.

MOSCOW, September 20. /TASS/: Attempts to inspect the Russian region of Crimea as part of Ukraine are useless and provocative, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The statement came in the wake of Friday’s release of a US Department of State’s report, headlined Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Compliance Report).

21 September 2019; AFP: A team of scientists from 19 countries will set off for the Arctic on Friday, aiming to freeze their ship into the polar ice for a year to research the changing climate.

Aboard the massive icebreaker Polarstern, belonging to Germany's Alfred Wegener polar and marine research institute, researchers hope to glean new understanding of the region.

21 September 2019; AFP: Dozens of demonstrators were arrested at yellow vest protests in Paris on Saturday as more than 7,000 police were deployed to quell any violence by the movement and its radical, anarchist "black blocs".

There were also fears that the demonstrators could try to infiltrate a march against climate change in the French capital.