Europe

13 Sep 2018; DW: A 33-year-old has been convicted of hate speech and assault after displaying a banned Nazi greeting at a far-right rally. The district court in Chemnitz is fast-tracking trials related to the recent unrest in the city.

A German court on Thursday sentenced a 33-year-old man to eight months probation and a fine of €2,000 ($2,300) for making the Hitler salute during far-right protests in Chemnitz.

BERLIN, September 14. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will discuss the situation in Idlib at a meeting on September 17 in Sochi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday at a plenary session of the German-Russian Forum.

BERLIN, September 14. /TASS/. Russia is warning those who would like to implement a military scenario in Donbass, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference following talks with his German counterpart Heiko Maas on Friday.

"I would like to strongly warn those who are hatching a military scenario. It would be a disaster for the Ukrainian people, because it may really undermine Ukrainian statehood. Waging a war on one’s own citizens is impermissible," he stated.

Lavrov said the situation in Ukraine was discussed at his talks with Maas in great detail.

MOSCOW, September 14. /TASS/. Russia will neither implement nor react to the United States’ unilateral demands for additional inspections concerning chemical weapons in Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

VILNIUS, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- The European Union will not consider lifting its sanctions on Russia until the implementation of Minsk agreements, however, the EU's dialogue with Russia must be maintained, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said here Friday.

"Ukraine's territorial integrity has not been restored and this remains to be a key topic. We will not consider lifting sanctions on Russia until the Minsk agreements are implemented," Merkel told a joint press conference with Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite.

12 Sep 2018; DW: A study commissioned by the German Bishops Conference examined 3,677 cases of abuse allegedly perpetrated by clergy nationwide, German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Wednesday. The universities of Giessen, Heidelberg and Mannheim were involved in the research, which implicated 1,670 priests in sexual abuse spanning from 1946 to 2014.

MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/. The main stage of the Vostok-2018 strategic drills was held at the Tsugol firing range in the Trans-Baikal Region. The Vostok-2018 maneuvers are the biggest in the history of the Russian army, unparalleled since 1981, when the Soviet Union held drills involving about 100,000 people.

MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/. US actions in Syria are leading the world to the brink of an abyss, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Thursday.

"We see the current events involving Syria as an attempt by the Americans to test a new mechanism of maintaining their own world supremacy," she said. "Its gist is to create some kind of strike coalition of the leading western powers with the aim to demonstrate force and determination to press for military solutions of problems emerging in this or that part of the world."

MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/. Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat have held a meeting in Moscow, discussing the situation in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, the council said in a statement on Thursday.

MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/. India expects Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit the country on October 4, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Svaraj said on Thursday before the start of negotiations with her Russian colleague Sergey Lavrov.

"We look forward to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India, which will take place on October 4," she noted. "We hope that this visit will facilitate further strengthening of our relations."