Europe

LONDON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Two tankers have had their environmental and safety classification withdrawn by a U.S. company that provides such certification, after accusations by a U.S. advocacy group that they had shipped cargoes of Iranian oil, documents seen by Reuters show.

Countries targeted by tougher U.S. sanctions, including Iran and Venezuela, have responded to the mounting pressure with elaborate strategies to circumvent restrictions on their oil exports. 

BERLIN, Jan 21 (Reuters) - German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock expressed scepticism about cutting Russian banks off from the Swift global payments system in an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

"Decoupling all payment transactions would perhaps be the biggest stick, but not necessarily the sharpest sword," she told the paper.

She said Western countries were looking very closely at which economic and financial sanctions would actually affect the Russian economy and leadership without a bounceback effect.

WARSAW, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Poland's prime minister on Friday called on European leaders to take a tough, united stance towards Russia amid fears that Moscow could be readying an invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy concluded two days of talks with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda on Friday, and Poland has said that Kyiv can count on its support in the event of a Russian attack.

However, Warsaw has not announced precise details of the form this support could take.

BERLIN, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social Democrats are pushing ahead with one of their key election promises by increasing the national minimum wage to 12 euros ($13.62) per hour from October onwards, a draft law seen by Reuters showed on Friday.

Currently, Germany's minimum wage is 9.82 euros per hour. It will increase to 10.45 euros per hour from July.

PARIS, Jan 21 (Reuters) - A French court on Friday sentenced two one-time aides to former French president Nicolas Sarkozy to jail for their role in the misuse of public funds to finance opinion poll contracts.

Five of Sarkozy’s former aides and allies from his time as president between 2007 and 2012 were on trial on charges of favoritism, conspiracy and misuse of public funds over the awarding of contracts worth 7.5 million euros ($8.5 million)

GENEVA, Jan 21 (Reuters) - The United States and the European Union have downgraded their dispute at the World Trade Organization over steel and aluminium tariffs applied by former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018 and subsequent EU retaliation, documents filed at the WTO show.

The two sides agreed in October to suspend their tariffs and work on a deal to combat "dirty" production and overcapacity in the industry in the next two years, with China clearly the focus of their attention.

GENEVA, Jan 21 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday raised the cases of Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, two U.S. citizens detained in Russia and repeated Washington's call for their release during talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Geneva.

The top diplomats of Russia and the United States met in the Swiss city amid soaring tensions over Ukraine, after talks between their deputies last week failed to achieve a breakthrough.

LONDON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Two men suspected by Germany of assisting an Islamist gunman, who killed four people in Vienna in 2020, used the major cryptocurrency exchange Binance, German federal police said in a confidential letter seeking information from the company.

Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) said in the March 2021 letter, which was seen by Reuters, there were indications that the suspects bought or sold an unspecified amount of cryptocurrency on Binance.

MOSCOW (AP) — Daily new coronavirus infections in Russia reached an all-time high Friday and authorities blamed the highly contagious omicron variant, which they expect to soon dominate the country’s outbreak.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova on Friday noted “intensive spread of the omicron variant” and said the authorities “expect it to become the dominating” variant driving the outbreak. The state coronavirus task force Golikova heads reported 49,513 new infections on Friday — the highest yet in the pandemic.

STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — Convicted mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik spends his days in a spacious three-room cell, playing video games, exercising, watching TV and taking university-level courses in mathematics and business.

Halfway through a 21-year sentence and seeking early release, Breivik, 42, is being treated in a way that might seem shocking to people outside of Norway, where he killed eight in an Oslo bombing in 2011, and then stalked and gunned down 69 people, mostly teens, at a summer camp.