Europe

9 Nov 2021; MEMO: The European Union is not paying money to the Turkish government, but it is supporting the refugees in the country, a top EU official said on Tuesday.

"Let's make it clear—the European Commission is not paying money to the Turkish government. We are supporting Syrian refugees in Turkey," European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, told a hearing in the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee.

9 Nov 2021; MEMO: Thousands of irregular migrants are facing desperate conditions as they continue waiting at the Polish-Belarusian border, hoping to cross onto EU soil.

After crossing the Bruzgi border point in Grodno, Belarus on Monday, the immigrants—most of them from Iraq— came to the Polish border to spend Tuesday night.

Nearly 2,000 immigrants, including many women and children, stayed in tents they set up in front of the border fences in the forested area.

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — The United Nations climate summit in Glasgow has made “some serious toddler steps” toward cutting emissions but far from the giant leaps needed to limit global warming to internationally accepted goals, two new analyses and top officials said Tuesday.

And time is running out on the two weeks of negotiations.

The president of the climate talks, Alok Sharma, told high-level government ministers at the U.N. conference to reach out to their capitals and bosses soon to see if they can get more ambitious pledges because “we have only a few days left.”

MOSCOW, November 9. /TASS/: The service life of the Pacific Fleet’s Project 949A ‘Antey’ multirole nuclear-powered submarine Irkutsk will be extended by at least ten years after its repairs and upgrade at the Zvezda Ship Repair Plant in Russia’s Far East, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at the ministry’s conference call on Tuesday.

"The modernization of the [underwater] cruiser will make it possible to extend its service life by at least ten years and expand the Pacific Fleet’s combat potential," the defense chief said.

MOSCOW, November 9./TASS/: Moscow and the Vatican have agreed to bolster bilateral cooperation within international and European agencies in order to protect Christians, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference on Tuesday, following talks with the Secretary of the Holy See for Relations with States, Paul Richard Gallagher.

MOSCOW, November 9. /TASS/: Sberbank continues looking for ways to sell their subsidiary bank in Ukraine but the situation remains challenging, Chief Executive Officer of the Russian bank Herman Gref told reporters on Tuesday.

MINSK, November 9. /TASS/: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has slammed Poland’s most recent actions as blackmail, as Warsaw sent Leopard tanks to the border with Belarus in the wake of the current escalating crisis between the two states sparked by illegal migrants’ attempts to penetrate EU territory.

MOSCOW, November 9. /TASS/: Tensions in Europe have been on the rise for many years and the situation with migrants on the EU eastern border is just a part of the big picture, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, said on Telegram in response to comments by Lukasz Jasina, the Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman, who said that Russia is allegedly taking advantage of the crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border and is lying and twisting the facts, which heightens tensions in Europe.

PRAGUE, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Czech President Milos Zeman has asked opposition leader Petr Fiala to lead talks on forming a new government, the presidential office said on Tuesday, a next step in a handover of power to centre-right parties.

Fiala leads a coalition of five parties which together won the majority of votes in an Oct. 8-9 lower house election.

However, uncertainty has hung over talks on the formation of a new government as Zeman, 77, has been hospitalised since Oct. 10. He only addressed the election in a radio interview at the end of last week.

AMSTERDAM, Nov 9 (Reuters) - A group of hospitals in the southern Dutch province of Limburg on Tuesday called for the government to take new measures to stem rising COVID-19 cases, saying they have no space or staff to handle more coronavirus patients.

Coronavirus infections in the Netherlands, as in other parts of Europe, are approaching all-time highs despite adult vaccination levels around 85%.