Europe

MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/: The Embassy and Consulates General of Russia in Ukraine are functioning smoothly, despite attacks from Ukrainian radicals and provocations from Ukrainian security forces, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel on Tuesday.

"The Embassy and Consulates General of Russia work in a routine mode. They do it despite attacks on Russian foreign missions from Ukrainian radicals and provocations from local security forces," she said.

MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev discussed, among other things, the situation in Ukraine and Russia’s talks with the US and NATO on security guarantees for Russia, the Kremlin said.

LISBON, Jan 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Portuguese hospitals reported yesterday that, 80 people were hospitalised for complications arising from COVID-19, bringing the country’s total number of COVID-19-related hospitalisations to 1,813, the highest since Mar 3, 2021.

According to the epidemiological bulletin of the Directorate-General for Health (DGS), five more patients were referred to intensive care units, taking the number of people now in serious condition to 168, the highest number since Aug 12, 2021.

MOSCOW, Jan 17 (NNN-TASS) – Russia will station troops on its own territory, near the Ukrainian border, due to tensions with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said yesterday.

“We find it necessary to keep those troops, due to a very tense situation and very unfriendly environment,” Peskov said, in an interview with U.S. broadcaster CNN.

Russia has to take measures of precaution in response to NATO military build-up, drills and frequent flights of fighter jets and reconnaissance planes near the Russian borders, he said.

KYIV, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly condemned Russia massing troops near Ukraine's borders on Tuesday and said Ottawa would take a decision at the appropriate time on supplying military hardware to Ukraine.

Speaking alongside Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba at a briefing during a visit to Kyiv, Joly said any new offensive by Russia would incur serious consequences.

BERLIN/MOSCOW, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Germany may consider halting the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russia attacks Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz signalled on Tuesday, as pressure grew on his government to take a more hawkish stance on the Kremlin.

Scholz met NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Berlin to discuss the next steps after talks between Russia and Western states on the Kremlin's deployment of troops along Ukraine's border ended without a breakthrough last week.

SKIEN, Norway, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik gave a Nazi salute on Tuesday as he arrivedin court for a parole hearing that will decide if he should be released after spending more than a decade behind bars.

Breivik, a far-right extremist, killed 77 people in Norway's worst peacetime atrocity in July 2011. He killed eight with a car bomb in Oslo and then gunned down 69, most of them teenagers, at a Labour Party youth camp.

BRUSSELS, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The European Parliament on Tuesday elected conservative politician Roberta Metsola from Malta as its new president, succeeding David Sassoli who died of illness last week.

Members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg elected their new leader in the first ballot with 458 out of 616 valid votes. The 43-year-old Metsola is the youngest president of the European Parliament in the institution's history and the third woman to chair it.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia is sending troops from the country’s far east to Belarus for major war games, officials said Tuesday, a deployment that will further beef up Russian military assets near Ukraine amid Western fears of a planned invasion.

Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said the drills would involve practicing a joint response to external threats by Russia and Belarus, which have close political, economic and military ties.

Ukrainian officials have warned that neighboring Russia could launch an attack from various directions, including from Belarus.

BERLIN (AP) — The European Space Agency has narrowed down the candidate list for its next generation of astronauts, including dozens who have a physical disability.

The agency announced last year that it had received a record number of 22,589 applicants from people hoping to become the continent’s next generation of space travelers.