Europe

MOSCOW, December 3. /TASS/: Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin believes that 2028 will be critical for the continuation of activities on the International Space Station (ISS).

"The year 2028 will be a very critical one for the further work of the ISS, so we have already begun to work on the Russian orbital service station," he said on Friday.

MIASS, December 3. /TASS/: Ural motor vehicles produced in Russia have the demand in more than 40 countries, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said at the meeting with local authorities and plant management.

"Ural brand automobiles have demand among clients in more than 40 countries of the world at present. The company’s share on the Russian market of all-wheel drive trucks is about 30%," the deputy prime minister said.

Creation of a cluster to manufacture key components for trucks and road construction wheeled machines was also discussed at the meeting.

BERLIN, December 3. /TASS/: The employee of the UK Embassy in Germany, who is suspected of spying for Russia, may be extradited to the UK, Spiegel reported on Friday.

Germany is now considering a UK extradition request, the report said.

The Office of the German Federal Public Prosecutor on August 11 said the suspect, identified only as David S., at least once passed the documents that he obtained in line of duty to a Russian operative and received a compensation. The man has been placed in custody.

MOSCOW, December 3. /TASS/: The countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) are interested in the idea of creating the Eurasian Space Agency, Member of the Board - Minister in charge of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission Sergey Glazyev said at the EAEU business forum Space Integration on Friday.

"The idea of the Eurasian Space Agency is really relevant and in demand," he said, commenting on a proposal of Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin.

He added that, in his opinion, all countries of the union are interested in Roscosmos’ projects.

MOSCOW, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Belarusian state-run airline Belavia said on Friday it had been forced to reduce its fleet of planes by almost half after the European Union targeted it with sanctions.

The EU sanctioned Belavia on Thursday, accusing it of flying in migrants as a tactic to destabilise European states, punitive measures that were coordinated with Washington. 

The sanctions mean EU companies can no longer lease planes to the airline, EU officials have said.

MOSCOW, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Friday that Russia and the United States had a tentative date and time for a video summit between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden in the coming days, but that Moscow was waiting for Washington to finalise it.

Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov said Putin plans to tell Biden about a proposal for security guarantees that would halt the NATO military alliance's eastward expansion and end what Moscow describes as threatening weapons deployments to Russia's neighbours, including Ukraine.

KYIV, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Russia has massed more than 94,000 troops near Ukraine's borders and may be gearing up for a large-scale military offensive at the end of January, Ukraine's defence minister told parliament on Friday, citing intelligence reports.

Oleksii Reznikov said Ukraine would not do anything to provoke the situation but was ready to fight back if Russia launched an attack. He said Ukraine was pressing ahead with the construction of two naval bases on its south coast.

GENEVA, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization's (WHO) chief scientist on Friday urged people not to panic over the emergence of the Omicron coronavirus variant and said it was too early to say if COVID-19 vaccines would have to be modified to fight it.

Speaking in an interview at the Reuters Next conference,

Soumya Swaminathan also said it was impossible to predict if Omicron would become the dominant strain.

BERLIN, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel was honored here on Thursday evening with a military grand tattoo ceremony, the most solemn ceremony of the German armed forces.

Merkel said in her speech that she felt gratitude and humility, noting that trust is the most important asset in politics.

She described the 16 years as chancellor as eventful and challenging. She recalled, among other things, the financial crisis in 2008 and the many people seeking refuge in 2015.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s health minister said Friday that more than 1% of the population — almost a million people — are currently infected with the coronavirus, and called on citizens to get vaccinated if they haven’t done so yet.

The country confirmed 74,352 new daily COVID-19 cases and 390 additional deaths, figures published by the federal disease control agency showed. According to the Robert Koch Institute’s calculations, some 925,800 people in Germany are considered actively infected with the virus.