Europe

MOSCOW, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday that it was technically possible to restore the ruptured offshore infrastructure of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, TASS news agency reported.

A total of four leaks were discovered last week on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea near Denmark and Sweden, with a significant fall in gas pressure leading to the detection of the ruptures.

VATICAN CITY, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Pope Francis for the first time directly begged Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the "spiral of violence and death" in Ukraine, saying on Sunday that the crisis was risking a nuclear escalation with uncontrollable global consequences.

In an addreVATICAN CITYss dedicated to Ukraine and made to thousands of people in St. Peter's Square, Francis also condemned Putin's latest annexation of parts of Ukraine as being against international law. He urged Putin to think of his own people in the event of an escalation.

MOSCOW, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Russia has registered 30,085 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 21,049,027, the official monitoring and response center said Sunday.

The nationwide death toll increased by 96 to 387,468, while the number of recoveries grew by 46,992 to 20,140,608, the center said.

Meanwhile, Moscow reported 2,205 new cases, taking its total to 3,199,974.

SOFIA, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Greece-Bulgaria gas pipeline, the Gas Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB), started commercial operation on Saturday, according to ICGB AD, owner and operator of the IGB.

The IGB connects with the Greek national gas transmission system and the Trans-Adriatic gas pipeline (TAP AG) in the area of Komotini of Greece, and with the Bulgarian gas transmission system in the area of Stara Zagora of Bulgaria, according to a press release by the operator.

LONDON (AP) — King Charles III has decided not to attend the international climate change summit in Egypt next month, fueling speculation that the new monarch will have to rein in his environmental activism now that he has ascended the throne.

The Sunday Times newspaper reported that the decision came after Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss objected to Charles attending the conference, known as COP27, when she met with the king last month at Buckingham Palace.

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Liz Truss said Sunday that she could have done a better job “laying the ground” for her package of unfunded tax cuts, but insisted she would push on with an economic plan that has caused turmoil on financial markets and weakened the country’s public finances.

Truss acknowledged that the U.K. faces “a very turbulent and stormy time,” but said her policies would lead to a “high-growth, low-tax economy” in the longer term.

BERLIN (AP) — Swiss police used rubber bullets to disperse protesters in front of the Iranian Embassy in Bern after two men climbed over the embassy’s fence and pulled down the Iranian flag from a flagpole in the yard.

Police said late Saturday that nobody was injured and that the “large crowd” of protesters was dispersed after the use of rubber bullets. The two protesters who entered the embassy’s grounds were detained, according to police in the Swiss capital.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown and other targets Sunday with suicide drones, and Ukraine took back full control of a strategic eastern city in a counteroffensive that has reshaped the war.

Russia’s loss of the eastern city of Lyman, which it had been using as a transport and logistics hub, is a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine and heightening threats to use nuclear force.

PATRIOT PARK /Moscow Region/, October 1. /TASS/: Women will not be called up as part of Russia’s partial mobilization, the country’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told reporters on Saturday.

"No. And there are no such plans for the future. We are not going to call up women," Shoigu said, when asked a corresponding question.

MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/: The fighter aviation of Russia’s Aerospace Forces downed a Ukrainian MiG-29 in the vicinity of the Pavlovka populated locality in the Nikolayev region, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday.

"The fighter aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces downed a MiG-29 of Ukraine’s air force in the vicinity of the Pavlovka community in the Nikolayev region," he said.