Europe

LE GOSIER, Guadeloupe (AP) — Schools closed across the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe on Monday and France’s president warned of a “very explosive” situation in the territory, after protests against COVID-19 rules and vaccinations descended into days of rioting and looting.

France’s central government sent in police special forces to try to restore order to the former colony, as emergency workers said they were unable to reach neighborhoods barricaded by angry crowds.

ROCCELLA JONICA, Italy (AP) — When the Taliban took Kabul in August, Zakia was six months pregnant and in her first year of university while her husband, Hamid, was working as an auditor. They decided to flee, and along with five relatives, began a two-month odyssey that took them through Iran and Turkey.

When it was time to cross the Mediterranean, they did so on an expensive sailboat that came ashore this month on a beach in the southern Italian region of Calabria.

VIENNA (AP) — Austrians savored one last mulled wine in packed Christmas markets before the curtain came down on the holiday season that was just getting underway, plunging the country that gave the world “Silent Night” into its fourth lockdown of this pandemic on Monday.

The capital, Vienna, awoke groggily to the new restrictions, with people heading to work, to bring children to school or to exercise outdoors, more or less as usual.

MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/: Attempts to resolve the Ukrainian crisis by force will trigger serious consequences, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Sunday.

"Ukraine is most likely seeking another attempt to start solving its own problem by force, creating another disaster for itself and for everyone in Europe," the Kremlin spokesman told the Rossiya-1 TV channel.

MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Ministry’s move to publish the correspondence concerning the organization of the Normandy format summit (Germany, Russia, Ukraine, France) is unconventional but still brilliant and decisive, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Rossiya-1 TV channel.

"What is happening now in world diplomacy has never happened before, so, there has been much deceit. [We were] desperate to explain anything, and amid these public accusations of Moscow, such a brilliant step was taken," the Kremlin spokesman stated.

MOSCOW, November 21. / TASS /: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over the phone addressed the recent developments in Nagorno-Karabakh and the measures to stabilize it, the Kremlin press service stated.

MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/: Risks of provocations by Ukrainian special services and radical organizations in Crimea and against economic and transport facilities in the Azov and Black Seas have increased in the recent time, Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council Alexander Grebenkin said in an interview with the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily.

VIENNA, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Belarusian opposition leader in exile Svetlana Tikhanouskaya urged Austria's government and Austrian companies present in Belarus to do more to help her allies against President Alexander Lukashenko in remarks published on Sunday.

Her comments in a joint interview with Austrian newspapers Kleine Zeitung and Die Presse come on the eve of a video conference hosted by Austria in support of Belarusian civil society in the face of a crackdown on opposition by Lukashenko's government. Tikhanouskaya helped organise the conference.

PARIS, Nov 20 (Reuters) - France is sending police special forces to restore order in the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe hit by rioting and looting amid protests against COVID-19 protocols, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Saturday.

"The first message is that the state will stand firm," Darmanin told reporters after holding a crisis meeting on the situation in the Caribbean archipelago with Overseas Territory Minister Sebastien Lecornu.

MOSCOW, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has been revaccinated against COVID-19, Russian news agencies quoted him as saying on Sunday.

Putin said in June 2021 that he had been vaccinated with Sputnik V vaccine.

"Today, on your recommendation and that of your colleagues, I got another vaccination, Sputnik Light. This is called revaccination," Putin said at a meeting with the deputy director of the Gamaleya Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology, which developed both vaccines.