Europe

MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/: Lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula will be possible only on the condition there is no US pressure, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said in a commentary in the daily Kommersant.

In his opinion, "greater independence of countries in making sovereign decisions meeting national interests would facilitate progress towards a settlement over the Korean Peninsula."

BELGRADE, April 6. /TASS/: Serbia will continue to pursue European Union membership and maintain friendship with Russia, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a phone call, according to the Serbian presidential press service.

VIENNA, April 6. /TASS/: Hungary is working on a technical solution to the issue of paying for Russian gas supplies in rubles, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday.

Answering a question about paying for gas in rubles, the Hungarian Foreign Minister said that his country would have to fulfill "its first payment obligation to Gazprom" at the end of May, and a technical solution is being worked out.

VALLETTA, April 6 (Reuters) - Malta rebuffed EU calls to stop selling citizenship on Wednesday, telling the European Commission that the granting of citizenship falls within the national competence of a member state "and it should remain as such".

The Mediterranean island's reaction came after the European Commission said it had issued a "reasoned opinion" spelling out why Malta needs to stop selling citizenship, and warning of court action if the practice continues.

LONDON, April 6 (Reuters) - When a little known far-right politician called Vladimir Zhirinovsky claimed third place behind Boris Yeltsin in Russia's 1991 presidential election, it looked like a flash in the pan.

In fact it marked the start of a career spanning more than three decades in which he specialised at picking the scabs of Russian resentment and insecurity resulting from the break-up of the Soviet Union.

LONDON, April 6 (Reuters) - A British man who worked in the British embassy in Berlin has been charged with offences under the Official Secrets Act related to passing on information useful to Russia, London police said.

David Ballantyne Smith, 57, who was living in Potsdam, Germany and was employed as a security guard at the embassy, was extradited to Britain from Germany on Wednesday following his arrest by German police in August 2021, the police said.

VIENNA, April 6 (Reuters) - Iran has moved all its machines that make centrifuge parts from its mothballed workshop at Karaj to its sprawling Natanz site just six weeks after it set up another site at Isfahan to make the same parts, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday.

Iran granted International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access to Karaj in December to re-instal surveillance cameras there after a months-long standoff that followed what Tehran said was Israeli sabotage that destroyed one camera and badly damaged another, prompting Iran to remove all four cameras.

KIEV, April 6 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine on Wednesday created 11 humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to leave conflict-affected cities and deliver humanitarian aid, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Telegram.

The humanitarian corridors established safe exit routes from five towns in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and five towns and villages in Luhansk, Vereshchuk said.

One humanitarian corridor was set up to allow civilians to leave Mariupol in Donetsk, where there has been fierce fighting, via private transport.

BERLIN (AP) — The German government unveiled a major package of reforms Wednesday to boost the production of renewable power, meet its climate goals and become independent of energy imports from hostile nations such as Russia.

The 600-page “Easter package” approved by Cabinet lays out ambitious goals for the expansion of offshore power and declares the installation of renewable energy to be of “overriding public interest” — a trump card meant to cut through Germany’s often lengthy bureaucratic processes.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The United States on Wednesday announced sanctions targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two adult daughters and said it was toughening penalties against Russian banks in retaliation for “war crimes” in Ukraine.

The United Kingdom and the European Union were set to take additional steps, including a ban on new investment in Russian and an EU embargo on coal, after the recent evidence of atrocities that has emerged in the wake of the retreat by Russian forces from areas around Kyiv, including the town of Bucha.