Europe

ZRENJANIN, Serbia (AP) — They are shivering in barracks without heat, going hungry and have no money. They say their passports have been taken by their Chinese employer and that they are now stuck in a grim plainland in Serbia with no help from local authorities.

These are the Vietnamese workers who are helping build the first Chinese car tire factory in Europe. The Associated Press visited the construction site in northern Serbia where some 500 of the workers are living in harsh conditions as China’s Shandong Linglong Tire Co. sets up the huge facility.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Police opened fire on protesters and seven people were injured in rioting that erupted in downtown Rotterdam around a demonstration against COVID-19 restrictions. The Dutch city’s mayor called it “an orgy of violence.”

Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb told reporters in the early hours of Saturday morning that “on a number of occasions the police felt it necessary to draw their weapons to defend themselves” as rioters ran rampage through the port city’s central shopping district, setting fires and throwing rocks and fireworks at officers.

20 Nov 2021; MEMO: The Palestinian Mission in the UK on Friday condemned the designating of Hamas as a "terrorist organisation", stressing that this step "will make peace-making harder" than ever.

"With this move, the British government has complicated Palestinian unity efforts and undermined Palestinian democracy," the mission announced in a statement.

MOSCOW, November 19. /TASS/: Russia advocates promotion of a unifying agenda within the Northern European multilateral formats amid the growing NATO activity near Russian borders, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in the wake of his talks with OSCE Chairwoman, Foreign Minister of Sweden Ann Linde.

Lavrov noted that, despite the growing tensions, the sides still retain fields of cooperation in the Baltic Region and in Northern Europe.

BRUSSELS, November 19. /TASS/: US nuclear weapons may end up in Eastern Europe if Germany removes them from its territory, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a conference on Friday.

‘’I expect that Germany will continue to be part of nuclear sharing because it is so important for Europe, and it is a multilateral framework,’’ he said at a conference organized by the German Atlantic Association and the Federal Academy for Security Policy. ‘’The alternative for NATO nuclear sharing is different kinds of bilateral arrangements.’’

MOSCOW, November 19. /TASS/: Russia's coronavirus cases rose by 37,156 to 9,257,068 in the past 24 hours, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Friday.

Russia's coronavirus growth rate was 0.4%.

In particular, 2,714 coronavirus cases were reported in St. Petersburg in the past day, 1,777 in the Moscow region, 1,764 in the Samara region, 903 in the Krasnodar region and 884 in Crimea.

According to data from the crisis center, there are currently 1,039,225 active coronavirus cases in Russia.

MOSCOW, November 19. / TASS /: The crew of the Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft consisting of cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, who will be the first TASS correspondent onboard the orbital outpost, Japanese billionaire Yusako Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano flew to Baikonur in order to complete preparations for the flight to the International Space Station (ISS), Roscosmos stated on Friday.

"Today, on November 19, 2021, at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, the crew members were escorted to the Baikonur," the statement reads.

MOSCOW, November 19. /TASS/: Chairman of the State Duma (lower house) Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky took to Telegram on Friday to lash out at the resolution proposal submitted to the US Congress seeking to end Vladimir Putin’s recognition as president if he remains in office beyond the end of his current term in 2024, branding it a provocation and populism. What’s more, American lawmakers should focus on their own antiquated electoral system.

LONDON, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said it was "absolutely possible" his forces had helped migrants cross into Poland but denied they had been invited, the BBC reported.

"I think that's absolutely possible. We're Slavs. We have hearts. Our troops know the migrants are going to Germany," Lukashenko told the BBC in an interview. "Maybe someone helped them. I won't even look into this."

But Lukashenko denied inviting thousands in to provoke a border crisis, the BBC said.

MOSCOW, Nov 19 (Reuters) - The Kremlin denounced as "absurd" on Friday a resolution proposed by U.S. lawmakers to stop recognising Vladimir Putin as Russia's president if he stays in power after 2024, and described it as U.S. meddling in Russian affairs.

Putin's term as president is due to end in 2024 and he can seek two more terms under constitutional amendments made during his presidency. Under the previous constitutional limits, he would have been barred from running again.