Europe

MOSCOW (AP) — American and European officials may be staying away from the Beijing Winter Olympics because of human rights concerns, but Russian President Vladimir Putin will be on hand even as tensions soar over his buildup of troops along his country’s border with Ukraine.

Putin’s talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday will mark their first in-person meeting since 2019 and are intended to help strengthen Moscow’s ties with China and coordinate their policies in the face of Western pressure. After, the two will attend the Games’ opening ceremony.

LONDON, Feb 2 (APP): Pakistan’s High Commissioner to UK Moazzam Ahmad Khan has stated that as the United Kingdom was Pakistan’s strategic partner, this partnership was deepening through growing linkages in diverse fields.

UK, being the 3rd largest export market for Pakistani products, accounted for approximately 8% of Pakistan’s global exports, he added.

MADRID, February 2. /TASS/: The US and NATO have offered Moscow a dialogue on arms control and measures to prevent incidents in exchange for de-escalation in Ukraine and the withdrawal of Russian troops and peacekeepers from Crimea, Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais which released the full text of the confidential US-NATO responses to Russia’s proposals on security guarantees.

WARSAW, February 2. /TASS/: Ukrainian authorities rule out providing special status and veto power to Donbass, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said in an interview for Rzeczpospolita, published Wednesday.

"No Ukrainian region will have a right power for national state decisions. This is set in stone! There will be no special status, as Russia imagines it, no voting power," he said.

MOSCOW, February 2. /TASS/: Russia will take measures against German news media operating in Russia to respond to the decision by a German regulator to ban broadcasting by RT DE, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

LONDON, Feb 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The 23 members of the OPEC+ oil cartel, who meet on Wednesday, are expected to stick to their guns and increase output modestly as the price of crude surges.

  As in January, analysts expect the taps to be opened slightly, to the tune of an additional 400,000 barrels per day, Tamas Varga, an analyst at PVM Energy, said.

GENEVA, Feb 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A sub-variant of the highly contagious Omicron coronavirus strain, which some studies indicate could be even more infectious than the original version, has been detected in 57 countries, the
WHO said.

   The fast-spreading and heavily mutated Omicron variant has rapidly become the dominant variant worldwide since it was first detected in southern Africa 10 weeks ago.

DUNABOGDANY, Hungary, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Setting a brisk pace, 79-year-old Peter Nogradi pounds the streets of a sleepy village by the Danube river each Wednesday, dropping a newsletter into mailboxes as part of a campaign by opponents of Hungary's Prime Minister ahead of April elections.

LONDON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Russia could use cyberattacks as part of its efforts to destabilise and further invade Ukraine, a White House cyber official visiting her European counterparts said on Wednesday.

Anne Neuberger, U.S. deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, was meeting European Union and NATO officials in Brussels to discuss the threat of cyber attacks against Ukraine by Russia.

"We've been warning for weeks and months, both publicly and privately" of potential attacks, Neuberger told a virtual news conference.

BERLIN, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- To offset the effect of rising energy prices, the German government decided on Wednesday to provide a one-time heating allowance to around 2.1 million people in the country.

Support would be provided in particular to housing benefit recipients and students receiving financial support, it said.

Housing benefit recipients who live alone would receive 135 euros (153 U.S. dollars), two-person households would get 175 euros, while students are to receive 115 euros, according to the government.