Europe

WARSAW, November 10. /TASS/: Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki considers the crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border not one of migration, but a political one. He reported on Wednesday at the joint press conference with President of the European Council Charles Michel following the discussion of the current situation.

"This is not a migration crisis. This is a political one which is orchestrated to destabilize the situation in the EU," he said blaming the Belarusian and Russian authorities for what is happening.

MOSCOW, November 10. /TASS/: The Ukrainian leadership is giving the appearance that it is working in the Contact Group on settling the crisis in eastern Ukraine, however Moscow doesn’t hold any hopes for a meeting of its specialized subgroups, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reported on Wednesday.

OVRUCH, Ukraine, Nov 10 (Reuters) - "As soon as I recover, I will have to be vaccinated," says Halyna, one of 75 COVID patients in a Ukrainian city hospital whose doctors are pushing the message that vaccination is the best way to keep local people out of the wards.

Mistrust in vaccines is widespread in Ukraine. Several years ago it led to an outbreak of measles and today it puts thousands in hospital with COVID.

STOCKHOLM, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Swedish centre-left Prime Minister Stefan Lofven formally resigned on Wednesday, opening the way for Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson to become the country's first woman premier if she can win parliament's approval.

Lofven, a former welder and union negotiator, has headed a minority coalition with the Greens since 2014 and said earlier this year that he would step down ahead of the next general election, due in September 2022. 

PRAGUE, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The Czech Republicand Slovakia reported fresh surges in coronavirus infections on Wednesday and again had to start limiting non-urgent hospital care to cater for admissions of COVID-19 patients.

Slovakia, a country of 5.5 million, reported a record high 7,055 new cases for Tuesday, and the Czech Republic, twice the size, reported 14,539 cases, not far from an all-time peak seen in January.

BRUSSELS, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The European Union's foreign policy chief warned the bloc on Wednesday that it must agree an ambitious doctrine as the basis for joint military action abroad, including with a deployable crisis force.

Josep Borrell told reporters his first draft of the "Strategic Compass" - the closest thing the EU could have to a military doctrine and akin to NATO's "Strategic Concept" that sets out alliance goals - was crucial to security.

MOSCOW, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Russia took the rare step of dispatching two nuclear-capable strategic bombers to patrol Belarusian airspace on Wednesday in a show of support to close ally Belarus at a time when it is locked in a migrant standoff with the European Union.

Moscow's decision to up the ante came as the 27-nation bloc considered sanctions on Wednesday to punish Minsk for what it calls an artificially created crisis, something Belarus denies.

ATHENS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The fallout of a new wave of the pandemic in Europe dominated discussions between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte in Athens Tuesday evening.

"The measures are common everywhere. We have decided to avoid shutting down our society and economy, to extend the use of mask and social distancing, to give more support to our national health systems, to keep on with vaccination program and booster shots in order to surpass the crisis," Mitsotakis said following the meeting.

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Prince Harry has sharply attacked the failure of social media companies to challenge hate online, revealing that he warned the chief executive of Twitter ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots that the site was being used to stage political unrest.

Harry made the comments Tuesday in an online panel on misinformation in California. He said he made his concerns known via email to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey the day before the riot in Washington.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday to intervene with Belarus over the migrant situation on that country’s border with Poland, where groups of migrants made bold attempts this week to cross into European Union territory.