Europe

MOSCOW, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Russian military forces and hardware began arriving in ex-Soviet Belarus for joint drills starting in February, Minsk said on Monday, amid soaring tensions between East and West over Ukraine.

The "Allied Resolve" exercises will be held near Belarus's western rim, the borders of NATO members Poland and Lithuania, and its southern flank with Ukraine, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said.

KYIV, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Germany's foreign minister said on Monday she hoped tensions with Russia over Ukraine could be solved by diplomacy, but she warned that Moscow would suffer if it does attack its neighbour.

Minister Annalena Baerbock was speaking in Kyiv on a tour that next takes her to Moscow after talks between Russia and Western states on the Kremlin's deployment of tens of thousands of troops along Ukraine's border ended with no breakthrough last week.

MOSCOW, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Russia and Belarus will hold joint military drills in February, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday, amid soaring tensions between East and West over Ukraine.

Russia, a close ally of Belarus, has worried the West and Kyiv with a troop build-up near Ukraine's borders and a barrage of threatening rhetoric, stirring fears that it plans to invade. 

GENEVA (AP) — Seven activists have gone on trial in Switzerland on Monday over charges including alleged trespassing and resisting arrest, over their roles in a campsite protest against the expansion of a limestone quarry in rolling Swiss countryside.

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday visited Albania to talk with Prime Minister Edi Rama on strengthening bilateral ties and also inaugurate new apartments funded by Turkey for Albanians left homeless by the 2019 earthquake.

Upon landing Erdogan immediately headed to the northwestern town of Lac, 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of the capital Tirana, where Turkey has funded the building of a complex with 522 apartments at a cost of 42 million euros ($48 million).

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian authorities on Monday reported a sharp spike in new coronavirus cases, apparently driven by the rapid spread of the omicron variant health officials warned about last week.

The country’s state coronavirus task force registered 30,726 new infections over the last 24 hours, which is twice as many as 15,830 just a week ago and the highest daily tally since early December. The task force has also reported 670 deaths.

GENEVA (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping called Monday for greater world cooperation against COVID-19 and pledged to send an additional 1 billion doses of vaccine to other countries, while urging other powers to discard a “Cold-War mentality” at a time of rising geopolitical tensions — a veiled swipe at the United States.

16 Jan 2022; MEMO: President Vladimir Putin will host his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi for talks in Moscow next week as Russia tries to help salvage a nuclear deal between world powers and Tehran, Reuters reported on Sunday quoting the state television channel Rossiya-1.

Rossiya-1 did not disclose when precisely the meeting between the two leaders would take place, nor the issues they would discuss.

MOSCOW, January 15. /TASS/: All the ten planes with Russian peacekeepers from the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) peacekeeping contingent arrived in Ivanovo in central Russia from Kazakhstan, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Saturday.

"All the ten planes with the Russian peacekeepers from the CSTO Collective Peacekeeping Forces have arrived at the Severny aerodrome (Ivanovo) from Kazakhstan," the ministry said in a statement.

WARSAW, January 15. /TASS/: Polish Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Zbigniew Rau plans to visit Moscow in mid-February, Polish Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lukasz Jasina told the Polish Press Agency on Saturday.