Russia

MOSCOW, Nov 4 (NNN-TASS) — Global coronavirus infection rates are on the decline for the second consecutive month.

A total of 12.9 mln cases were confirmed across the world in October, nearly three mln below the number in September, according to TASS estimates.

Mortality rates are also declining. About 214,000 coronavirus patients died globally in the past month, a 20% drop from the September figure. TASS has put together key coronavirus statistics from the past month.

MOSCOW, November 3. /TASS/: Russia and the United States are gradually restoring communication channels, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said in a live broadcast of the Rossiya-24 TV Channel on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, November 3. /TASS/: NATO's attempts to dictate its architecture of security to the Asia-Pacific Region are destructive, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Wednesday.

"We believe that NATO's attempts at dictating its vision of security architecture to the region are destructive and may seriously destabilize the situation in the APR," she said.

NOVOSIBIRSK, November 3. /TASS/: A Boeing 747 cargo plane belonging to Cargolux that was heading from Belgium’s Liege to Qingdao in China, has made an emergency landing in Novosibirsk’s Tolmachevo airport, the airport’s press service told TASS.

"The Cargolux Boeing made an emergency landing. It was flying from Liege to Qingdao. There were no injuries," an airport’s representative said.

SOCHI, November 3. /TASS/: Advanced weapons developed by Russia have ensured a high level of the country’s military security, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a defense industry meeting on Wednesday.

"Today we will discuss the pace of rearming the Army and the Navy with the systems based on new physical principles," the Russian leader said, opening the defense industry meeting.

MOSCOW, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Tests of Russia's Zircon hypersonic cruise missile are nearing completion and deliveries to the navy will begin in 2022, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

The move is part of a bid by Moscow to forge ahead in a race with the United States and others to deploy the next generation of long-range weapons that are harder to detect and intercept.

Russia last month said it had successfully test launched a Zircon missile from a submarine for the first time.

MOSCOW (AP) — A Belarusian cargo plane crashed Wednesday while trying to land in eastern Russia, killing all seven people on board, officials said.

The Soviet-built An-12 operated by Belarusian carrier Grodno crashed and caught fire near Irkutsk, eastern Siberia.

Belarus’ Investigative Committee, the top state investigative agency, said there were seven people on board and all of them died in the crash.

MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/: Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) believes that Advisor to the head of Russia's Roscosmos State Space Agency Ivan Safronov and political scientist Demuri Voronin handed information on the activities of the Russian Armed Forces in Syria over to Germany's intelligence, Safronov's lawyer Ivan Pavlov told reporters.

November 2. /TASS/: Russia's coronavirus cases rose by 39,008 to 8,593,200 in the past 24 hours, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Tuesday. This is the lowest daily number of cases in a week.

According to data from the crisis center, Russia's coronavirus growth rate was 0.46%.

In particular, 3,066 coronavirus cases were reported in St. Petersburg in the past day, 2,893 in the Moscow region, 1,547 in the Samara region, 801 in the Voronezh region and 789 in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

There are currently 939,698 active coronavirus cases in Russia.

SEVASTOPOL, November 2. /TASS/: The Black Sea Fleet’s Bal and Bastion coastal defense missile systems wiped out a notional enemy’s surface ships during drills in the Black Sea, the Fleet’s press office reported on Tuesday.

"The teams of Bal and Bastion mobile coastal defense anti-ship missile systems from a Black Sea Fleet missile/artillery formation held drills to eliminate a group of the mock enemy’s surface ships in the Black Sea," the press office said in a statement.