Europe

MOSCOW, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday blamed the West for escalating tensions in Europe, saying it had incorrectly assessed the outcome of the Cold War.

Speaking to senior military officials, Putin said Russia would respond "adequately" to any Western aggression and would develop its army further.

"Why did they expand NATO and renounce the missile defence treaties? They are to blame for what is happening now, for the tensions building up in Europe," Putin said.

LONDON, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Countries across Europe considered new curbs on movement on Tuesday as U.S. President Joe Biden called on military medics to support hospitals and fight the Omicron variant that has swept the world days before the second Christmas of the pandemic.

Omicron infections are multiplying across Europe, the United States and Asia, including in Japan, where a single cluster of COVID-19 cases at a military base has grown to at least 180.

Dec 21 (Reuters) - The European Commission on Tuesday adopted rules that will make the European Union COVID-19 certificate valid for travel nine months after the completion of the primary vaccination schedule.

The proposal comes as several EU states introduce additional requirements on travellers in a bid to reduce the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant. EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders told Reuters the EU Commission was against additional requirements, and was assessing the measures.

LONDON, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, has been ordered by the High Court in London to provide a British record of more than 554 million pounds ($733 million) to settle a custody battle with his ex-wife over their two children.

The bulk of the massive award to Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, half-sister of Jordan's King Abdullah, and the couple's two children, is to ensure their lifetime security, not least to address the "grave risk" posed to them by the sheikh himself, said the judge, Philip Moor.

GENEVA, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday called on the world to pull together to end the COVID-19 pandemic within the next year.

The UN health agency said, "2022 must be the year we end the pandemic."

With festivities coming at the end of the year, "all of us want to get back to normal," said the WHO, adding that "we need to protect ourselves now."

It is better to cancel events now and celebrate later than to celebrate now and grieve later, it said.

BERLIN (AP) — Franziska Giffey, a former federal minister who quit Germany’s national government earlier this year, became Berlin’s new mayor on Tuesday as the leader of a three-party left-wing governing coalition.

Giffey was elected by the state legislature nearly three months after a regional election in which she led her center-left Social Democrats, the party of new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, to a narrow victory over the environmentalist Greens.

GIESSEN, Germany (AP) — She had already walked for 60 hours through the wet, dark forests of Poland, trying to make her way to Germany, when the 29-year-old Syrian Kurd twisted her knee.

It wasn’t the first setback in Bushra’s journey.

Earlier, her road companion and best friend had fainted in a panic attack as Polish border guards chased them. They hid in ditches and behind trees as her friend tried to regain her breath, but it was no good. They turned themselves in and the guards dumped them back across the border into Belarus.

MOSCOW, December 20. /TASS/: Arab investors withdrew from the capital of the Russian Helicopters company after receiving a 50% stake in the company’s design bureau, Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov told reporters on Monday.

"They [the UAE investors] are no longer shareholders of Russian Helicopters but together with Russian Helicopters they are 50% shareholders in a separate company for the development of the VRT-500 light helicopter and the VRT-300 unmanned aircraft system," he said.

MINSK, December 20. /TASS/: A Belarusian diplomat was hurt in an attack on the republic’s embassy in London on the evening of December 19, the press office of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry reported on Monday.

MINSK, December 20. /TASS/: The Belarusian Investigative Committee has handed over the criminal case against Russian national Sofia Sapega, accused on four counts of the republic’s Criminal Code, to a prosecutor for submitting it to a court of law for trial, the Investigative Committee reported on Monday.