Europe

LONDON, Nov 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) – G7 foreign ministers urged Belarus Thursday to end a migrant crisis on its border with Poland, accusing it of callously engineering the stand-off and putting lives at risk.

  “We call on the regime to cease immediately its aggressive and exploitative campaign,” Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States said in a joint statement.

They charged that President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime orchestrated irregular migration across its borders.

MOSCOW, Nov 18 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the West was not taking Russia's warnings not to cross its "red lines" seriously enough and that Moscow needed to obtain serious security guarantees from the West.

In a speech to foreign policy officials in Moscow, Putin said that talks to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine were moving towards a dead end and accused the West of using a migrant crisis in Belarus against Moscow's ally Minsk.

He said NATO - with which Moscow severed ties last month - had destroyed all mechanisms for dialogue.

MADRID, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Cuban dissident Yunior Garcia said on Thursday he left the communist-ruled island for Spain after the authorities cut his phone lines and those of his close relatives, and threatened them with reprisals if they joined planned protests.

The dissident, 39, whose plan for a mass protest on Monday was declared illegal and blocked by local authorities, arrived in Madrid on Wednesday after securing a visa from the Spanish government.

MOSCOW, Nov 18 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Thursday that a phone call this week between top U.S and Russian security officials was part of preparations for talks between presidents Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden, the latest in a series of signals that Moscow is keen for a second summit between the two leaders.

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan discussed cybersecurity, Ukraine and the migrant crisis on the Belarus border in their phone call on Wednesday, the Kremlin said.

Nov 18 (Reuters) - A Chinese envoy has lobbied Southeast Asian nations to let Myanmar's military ruler attend a regional summit being hosted by China's president next week but has met stiff opposition, diplomatic sources said on Thursday.

Myanmar's standing as a member of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been thrown into the spotlight by a Feb. 1 coup, when its military ousted the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking bloody turmoil.

SARAJEVO, Nov 18 (Reuters) - The European Union must seal its external borders to deter migrants who are no longer welcome in the wealthy 27-member bloc, Interior Minister Ales Hojs of Slovenia, which currently presides over the EU, said on Thursday.

Speaking at an international conference on migration in Sarajevo, Hojs said European interior ministers had been preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic, a migrant crisis which he said was hybrid war waged by Belarus against the EU's eastern borders, and the fall of the government in Afghanistan.

KIEV, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- Visiting British Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace said his country stands ready to continue its support for Ukraine, according to a statement issued by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry on Wednesday.

"The United Kingdom stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine and will continue its long-standing determination to support them," Wallace said in the joint statement with Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov following their talks in Kiev on Tuesday.

LONDON, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- A British F-35 fighter jet has crashed into the sea during a routine operation in the Mediterranean, the country's Ministry of Defence said Wednesday.

The pilot ejected and returned safely to the royal navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, the ministry said.

It added the incident happened at 10:00 GMT over international waters and hostile action is not thought to have been involved.

An investigation has begun and would likely focus on potential technical or human error, reported the BBC.

BRUSSELS, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Belgian authority on Wednesday announced new measures to curb the rise in new coronavirus cases, including mandatory mask wearing in all closed public places.

"The virus is three times more contagious than the virus of last year," said Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, following the announcement of the new measures.

"We put emphasis on prevention and protection, not closure," he said.

MOSCOW (AP) — More than 400 Iraqis sought to fly home from Belarus on Thursday, abandoning their hopes of reaching the European Union following more than a week of tensions at the bloc’s eastern border where hundreds of migrants remain stuck.

A plane carrying an unknown number is expected to depart from Minsk in the early afternoon and make two stops — one in the city of Erbil and another in the capital, Baghdad. A total of 430 Iraqis have registered for flights home, and most of those were already at the airport, according to Iraq’s consul in Russia Majid al-Kilani.