Europe

BERLIN, January 30. /TASS/: Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline’s operator, Nord Stream 2 AG, is unlikely to be certified before late June, despite the fact that it has a subsidiary in Germany, President of the Federal Network Agency Jochen Homann said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, which came out on Sunday.

BRUSSELS, January 30. /TASS/: The European Union is working on new sanctions against Russia to deprive it of products it may need to attain its strategic ambitions, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Sunday.

PRAGUE, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Thousands of Czechs massed in Prague's Wenceslas Square on Sunday, waving flags and chanting slogans against COVID-19 restrictions, even as infections surge.

Protesters mainly objected to harsher restrictions for the unvaccinated, including a ban on eating in restaurants.

"The state should listen to the people's demands. The arrangements and restrictions lead us on the road to hell," Zuzana Vozabova who banged a drum through the protest, said.

LONDON/MOSCOW, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Europe needs to diversify its energy supplies, the head of NATO said on Sunday, as Britain warned it was "highly likely" that Russia, the continent's biggest natural gas supplier, was looking to invade Ukraine.

Russia has massed some 120,000 troops near its neighbour and demanded the western defence alliance pull back troops and weapons from eastern Europe and bar Ukraine, a former Soviet state, from ever joining the Western defence alliance.

ROME, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Italian President Sergio Mattarella was elected to a second term, Lower House Speaker Roberto Fico announced late Saturday, after the parliament gathered in a joint session and concluded its eighth round of voting.

Mattarella was reconfirmed with a broad majority, namely 759 votes in favor from a total of 983 lawmakers and regional representatives actively taking part in the ballot.

MOSCOW, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine's admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would seriously undermine relations between Russia and the alliance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Sunday.

"Everyone understands that Ukraine is not ready (to join NATO) and will not make any contribution to strengthening NATO's security," Lavrov told a Russian TV program.

HELSINKI (AP) — A powerful winter storm swept through northern Europe over the weekend, killing at least four people, destroying houses and cars, closing bridges and causing flooding and halting transport while leaving thousands of households without electricity.

Storm Malik was advancing in the Nordic region on Sunday, bringing strong gusts of wind, and extensive rain and snowfall in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

MOSCOW (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations vowed that the U.N. Security Council will press Russia hard in a Monday session to discuss Moscow’s massing of troops near Ukraine and rising fears it is planning an invasion.

“Our voices are unified in calling for the Russians to explain themselves,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said of the U.S. and the other council members on ABC’s “This Week” program on Sunday. ”We’re going into the room prepared to listen to them, but we’re not going to be distracted by their propaganda.”

PARIS (AP) — The French left runs divided and weakened in the presidential race as at least five main candidates rejected any alliance with each other — and an online vote meant to pick a leader Sunday appears doomed to fail.

The so-called Popular Primary has been organized by left-wing supporters as an initiative meant to unite their ranks before the election scheduled in two rounds on April 10 and 24.

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portuguese voters went to the polls Sunday in an early election that looked set to produce another vulnerable minority government, just as the country is poised to start spending a huge windfall of European Union funds.

That outcome would leave Portugal back where it started two months ago, when lawmakers rejected the minority Socialist government’s spending bill and the country’s president dissolved parliament.