Europe

MOSCOW, January 29. /TASS/: NATO is escalating the arms race not for the sake of peace and talks but in order to continue geopolitical struggle against Russia, a Russian lawmaker said on Sunday.

MELITOPOL, January 29. /TASS/: At least four people were killed and five more were wounded in Ukraine’s attack on a railway bridge in the village of Svetlodolinskoye in the Zaporozhye region, the region’s acting governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, said on Sunday.

According to Balitsky, the strike was delivered at noon when repair works were conducted on the bridge. "According to preliminary data, four railway workers were killed and five more received wounds as a result of the shelling attack," he wrote on his Telegram channel.

MOSCOW, January 29. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke over the phone with his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts, Eli Cohen and Riyad al-Maliki, to express concern over the new spiral of violence in the zone of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Russian foreign ministry said on Sunday.

"The Russian side stressed that Moscow is concerned over the new spiral of violence in the zone of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which is fraught with the resumption of a full-scale armed confrontation leading to further casualties and damages," the ministry said.

STOCKHOLM, Jan 29 (NNN-XINHUA) — Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said on Saturday that the country’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) process has paused, local media reported.

“The events of the last few weeks have temporarily caused the process to a pause,” Billstrom told Expressen newspaper, adding that the Swedish government was now investing energy and time to try to push forward the process.

DUESSELDORF, Jan 29 (Reuters) - German arms-maker Rheinmetall is ready to greatly boost the output of tank and artillery munitions to satisfy strong demand in Ukraine and the West, and may start producing HIMARS multiple rocket launchers in Germany, CEO Armin Papperger told Reuters.

He spoke days before Germany's defence industry bosses are due to meet new defence minister Boris Pistorius for the first time, though the exact date has yet to be announced.

Jan 29 (Reuters) - Ukraine's military said on Sunday its forces repelled an attack in the area of Blahodatne in the eastern part of the Donetsk region, while Russia's Wagner private military group said it took control of the village.

"Units of Ukraine's Defence Forces repelled the attacks of the occupiers in the areas of ... Blahodatne ... in the Donetsk region," the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said in its daily morning report, referring to fighting on Saturday.

Jan 29 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin is open to contacts with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz though has no phone call scheduled with him, a Kremlin spokesman told the state RIA Novosti news agency on Sunday.

VALLETTA, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Celebrations of the Chinese Lunar New Year, or the Spring Festival, were held in Malta's largest shopping mall in Sliema, a commercial centre in eastern Malta on Saturday.

With the lion and dragon dance performance, brought by the Malta School of Wushu-Longgui, kicking off the celebrations, hundreds of local residents and tourists were attracted by the dance performance, the martial arts performance, and experienced activities such as Chinese calligraphy and painting, lantern folding and traditional Chinese medicine services.

LONDON, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Sunday fired chair of the ruling Conservative Party Nadhim Zahawi from the government after an investigation into his tax affairs found "a serious breach" of the ministerial code.

Zahawi, who last year was briefly Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, or finance minister, during a period of political turmoil, had been under increasing pressure to resign in recent weeks amid allegations that he settled a multimillion-dollar unpaid tax bill with the authorities.

PARIS (AP) — France’s prime minister insisted Sunday that the government’s plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 is “no longer negotiable,” further angering parliamentary opponents and unions who plan new mass protests and disruptive strikes this week.

Raising the pension age is one part of a broad bill that is the flagship measure of President Emmanuel Macron’s second term. The bill is meeting widespread popular resistance — more than 1 million people marched against it earlier this month — and misunderstanding about what it will mean for today’s French workers.