Europe

ZURICH, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is following the situation at Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) closely, SNB Governing Board member Andrea Maechler told Reuters on Wednesday.

Switzerland's second-biggest bank saw its shares slide by as much as 11.5% and its bonds hit record lows on Monday, before clawing back some of the losses, amid concerns about its ability to restructure its business without asking investors for more money. 

KIEV, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree to put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), which rules out holding any negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Zelensky's press service reported Tuesday.

The document, published on Zelensky's website, said that Ukraine's NSDC deemed holding talks with Putin "impossible."

BRUSSELS, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- The ministers of finance and economic affairs of the European Union (EU) member states, meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday, agreed to include energy self-sufficiency in their national recovery and resilience plans.

REPowerEU, a plan proposed by the European Commission in May, aims at strengthening the Union's strategic autonomy by diversifying energy supplies, thus weaning the bloc off its dependency on Russian fossil fuels. It also aims to boost energy saving and the production of clean energy.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The OPEC+ alliance of oil-exporting countries decided Wednesday to sharply cut production to support sagging oil prices, a move that could deal the struggling global economy another blow and raise politically sensitive pump prices for U.S. drivers just ahead of key national elections.

Energy ministers cut production by a larger-than-expected 2 million barrels per day starting in November after gathering for their first face-to-face meeting at the Vienna headquarters of the OPEC oil cartel since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A switch back to coal and other fossil fuels by several countries to weather an energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine shouldn’t compromise efforts to curb greenhouse emissions, United Nations officials said Wednesday.

Sonja Leighton-Kone, a senior official with the United Nations Environment Program said lending a sympathetic ear to the energy “shock” many countries are suffering doesn’t mean the goal of a speedy switch to clean energy can’t be achieved.

MADRID (AP) — A trial opened Wednesday in Spain over a 2013 train derailment that killed 80 passengers and injured 145 others, amid tensions at the court entrance between victims and one of the defendants.

The driver of the long-distance train that crashed against a concrete wall near Spain’s northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela and a former railway security director are accused of professional negligence.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three scientists were jointly awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for developing a way of “snapping molecules together” that can be used to design better medicines, including ones that target diseases such as cancer more precisely.

Americans Carolyn R. Bertozzi and K. Barry Sharpless, and Danish scientist Morten Meldal were cited for their work on click chemistry and bioorthogonal reactions, which are used to make cancer drugs, map DNA and create materials that are tailored to a specific purpose.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three scientists were jointly awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for developing a way of “snapping molecules together” that can be used to design better medicines, including ones that target diseases such as cancer more precisely.

Americans Carolyn R. Bertozzi and K. Barry Sharpless, and Danish scientist Morten Meldal were cited for their work on click chemistry and bioorthogonal reactions, which are used to make cancer drugs, map DNA and create materials that are tailored to a specific purpose.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin signed laws that claimed four regions of Ukraine as Russia’s territory while his country’s military struggled Wednesday to control the illegally annexed areas.

The documents finalizing the annexation, carried out in violation of international laws, were published on a Russian government website. In a defiant move, the Kremlin held the door open for further land grabs in Ukraine.

4 October 2022; MEMO: France's far-right politician, Marine Le Pen, has demanded more mosques be closed in the country, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Her demand comes despite the closure of 24 mosques in France in the past two years upon the order of Interior Minister, Gerald Darmanin.

In an interview with French TV channel, BFMTV, Marine Le Pen said: "He (Darmanin) closes a mosque there, a mosque here. He dismisses a preacher once in a while, but he must close all extremist mosques in our lands."