Europe

MOSCOW, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Russia said on Wednesday it was ordering U.S. embassy staff who have been in Moscow for more than three years to fly home by Jan. 31, a retaliatory move for what Moscow said was a U.S. decision to limit the terms of Russian diplomats.

The step, the latest in an escalating diplomatic row, comes after Russia's ambassador to the United States said last week that 27 Russian diplomats and their families were being expelled from the United States and would leave on Jan. 30. 

VIENNA, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Iran has started the process of enriching uranium to 20% purity with advanced centrifuges at its Fordow facility buried inside a mountain, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday, a move likely to raise tensions at talks on Iran's 2015 nuclear deal.

BRUSSELS/VILNIUS, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The European Union proposed on Wednesday curtailing some rights of migrants at its frontier with Belarus, a gesture towards member states Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, even as Brussels acknowledged border tensions were easing.

The EU says Belarus has flown in migrants from the Middle East to push them to cross the border, accusations Minsk calls absurd. Rights groups say at least 13 people have died as migrants have camped in freezing conditions at the border.

RIGA, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The United States urged Russia on Wednesday to pull back its troops from the Ukrainian border, warning that a Russian invasion would provoke sanctions that would hit Moscow harder than any imposed until now.

"We don't know whether President (Vladimir) Putin has made the decision to invade. We do know that he is putting in place the capacity to do so in on short order should he so decide," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

LONDON, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday that everyone over the age of 18 will be offered a booster vaccine by the end of January and another lockdown "extremely unlikely".

Speaking at a Downing Street news briefing on Tuesday, the prime minister said the rollout of booster programme will go in age order, and that there will be more than 1,500 community pharmacy sites in England offering the jabs.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Top European Union migration officials offered Wednesday to ease asylum rules for Poland, Lithuania and Latvia in response to what the EU says is a “hybrid attack” by Belarus to destabilize the bloc using migrants.

The move would make it harder for migrants to enter the 27-nation bloc from Belarus, angering nongovernmental organizations.

BRATISLAVA, SLovakia (AP) — Slovakia’s government has proposed a plan to give people 60 and older a 500-euro ($568) bonus if they get vaccinated against COVID-19, the finance minister said Wednesday.

The measure, announced by Finance Minister Igor Matovic, should boost inoculations in the European Union country with one of the bloc’s lowest vaccination rates. So far, only 46.1% of the nation’s 5.5 million people have been fully vaccinated.

LONDON (AP) — A U.K. parliamentary committee on Wednesday criticized government plans to deter migrants from trying to reach Britain in small boats, saying the measures will endanger lives without stopping dangerous journeys like the one that killed 27 people last week.

BERLIN (AP) — A World War II bomb exploded at a construction site next to a busy railway line in Munich on Wednesday, injuring four people, one of them seriously, German authorities said.

A column of smoke was seen rising from the site near the Donnersbergerbruecke station. The construction site for a new commuter train line is located on the approach to Munich’s central station, which is a bit over a kilometer (about a half-mile) to the east.

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Moscow would seek Western guarantees that would preclude any further NATO expansion and deployment of its weapons near Russia’s borders.

Putin’s statement came amid Ukrainian and Western worries about an alleged plan by Moscow to invade Ukraine. Russian diplomats countered them Wednesday by expressing concern about Ukraine’s military buildup near the area of the separatist conflict in the country’s east.