Europe

GENEVA, January 16. /TASS/. Russia is ready for new contacts with the United States on the future of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, but the US side has so far failed to respond to Moscow’s proposals, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/. Attempts of the United States and some other Western nations to assert their dominant role in the Balkan region have become a serious destabilizing factor, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Serbia’s Vecernje Novosti newspaper ahead of his visit to Belgrade.

MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/. Rescuers have pulled the fifth body from the rubble of a house in South Russia’s city of Shakhty, a spokesperson for the Russian Emergencies Ministry told TASS on Wednesday.

"Rescuers have found and retrieved the body of the fifth and last victim. The search operation is over," the source said.

BRUSSELS, January 16. /TASS/. The European Commission will have to step up preparations for a no-deal Brexit after the UK parliament voted to reject the withdrawal agreement between London and Brussels, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in a statement.

MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/. Russia urges Western powers to refrain from blackmail, threats and provocations in international politics and to build the dialogue on the basis of principles enshrined in the UN Charter, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Serbia’s Politika newspaper in the run-up to his visit to Belgrade.

MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/. The second contract to manufacture 13 Su-57 fighter jets for the Russian Aerospace Forces is to be signed next year, a source in Russia’s aircraft-making industry told TASS on Wednesday.

"In 2020, we plan to sign the second contract to manufacture and deliver 13 Su-57 fighter jets, some of them equipped with the second-stage engines," he said. "The preliminary timeframe for the new contract is five years."

The first contract envisages the delivery of two fifth-generation aircraft in 2019-2020.

GENEVA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The world is entering a period of "profound instability" due to the technological disruption of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and geo-economic and geopolitical realignment, Klaus Schwab, World Economic Forum (WEF) founder said Tuesday.

He was speaking at a press conference at the WEF headquarters here ahead of the forum's 2019 annual meeting that will take place Jan. 22-25 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.

Berlin, Jan 15 (AFP) Germany on Tuesday detained a German-Afghan man on suspicion he was spying for Iran while working for the German army as a linguistic and cultural adviser.

The 50-year-old identified as Abdul Hamid S. was arrested in western Germany, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

"The accused was a language evaluator and cultural issues adviser of the German armed forces. In this capacity, he is believed to have passed on information to an Iranian intelligence service," they added.

London, Jan 15 (AFP) British Prime Minister Theresa May faces crushing defeat in a historic vote in parliament on Tuesday over the Brexit deal she has struck with the European Union, leaving the world's fifth biggest economy in limbo.

With just over two months to go until the scheduled Brexit date of March 29, Britain is still bitterly divided over what should happen next and the only suspense over the vote is the scale of May's defeat.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Judges at the International Criminal Court on Tuesday acquitted former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and former youth minister Charles Ble Goude of crimes committed following disputed elections in 2010, saying prosecutors failed to prove their case.