Europe

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — EU leaders and their Western Balkan counterparts gathered Tuesday for talks aimed at strengthening their partnership as Russia’s war in Ukraine threatens to reshape the geopolitical balance in the region.

The EU wants to use the one-day summit in Albania’s capital to tell leaders from Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia that they have futures within the wealthy economic bloc and give them concrete signs, rather than just promises, that they will join one day.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A fire that broke out at an airport in Russia’s southern Kursk region that borders Ukraine was the result of a drone attack, the regional governor said Tuesday, a day after Moscow blamed Kyiv for drone strikes on two air bases deep inside Russia and launched a new wave of missile strikes on Ukrainian territory. Kursk Governor Roman Starovoy said in a Telegram post that the drone attack ignited an oil reservoir in the area of Kursk airport and the blaze was being contained by crews at the scene.

06 Dec 2022; MEMO: The Palestinian Authority (PA) has provided the International Criminal Court (ICC) a file on Israel's crimes against Palestinian children, Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al-Maliki said yesterday.

BELGRADE, December 5. /TASS/: Russia has never exerted any kind of pressure on Serbia and it maintains a friendly dialogue with it at the highest level, Russia’s ambassador to Belgrade, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, said on Monday.

Earlier, Botsan-Kharchenko warned of what he described as "deplorable socio-economic consequences of the European elites’ short-sighted policies: from rising prices and energy shortages to the actual de-industrialization of Europe," which led a number of Serbian opposition media to draw erroneous conclusions about pressure on Serbia.

MOSCOW, December 5. /TASS/: The US has state-of-the-art developments in the sphere of nuclear weapons in service, Head of the State Duma Defense Committee Andrey Kartapolov said during a plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO PA) on Monday.

"Despite the ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the United States is the only country in the world that still has not completed getting rid of them. And, by the way, it has the newest technologies in service in this sphere," the legislator pointed out.

MOSCOW, December 5. /TASS/: Russian air defense forces shot down two Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters in the Donetsk People’s Republic in the past day during the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Monday.

STOCKHOLM, December 5. /TASS/: Finland has no intention of deploying NATO nuclear weapons on its territory upon its accession to the alliance, Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said at a news conference on Monday.

"We realize that NATO is an alliance that possesses nuclear weapons, but those are under the control of the United States, which does not wish to proliferate them elsewhere," he said. "We are not asking for nuclear weapons and nobody’s offering us any," Finland’s top diplomat said.

MOSCOW, December 5. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law completely banning propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations, gender reassignment and pedophilia, according to a corresponding entry made in the Russian State Duma (lower parliament database) on Sunday.

Amendments have been made to the law on information, information technologies and information protection and to other documents.

Under the new law, such propaganda is now completely prohibited on social networks, in the mass media, films and advertisements.

VIENNA, Dec 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Major oil-producing countries led by Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed to maintain their current output levels in a climate of uncertainty and ahead of fresh sanctions against Moscow coming into force next week.

The representatives of the 13 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) led by Riyadh, and their 10 allies headed by Moscow, decided to stick to their course agreed in October of a production cut of two million barrels per day until the end of 2023.

LONDON, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Nick Read will step down as Vodafone (VOD.L) chief executive by the end of the year, ending a four-year tenure during which the British telecom group's share price has nearly halved.

Once one of the biggest mobile operators in the world, Vodafone has been selling assets to focus on Europe and Africa, but the deals have not arrested its stock's decline.