News in Brief

Date: 07 December 2021 - 21:10

News ID: ۹۷۴۷۷

VILNIUS (Reuters) -- Lithuania’s parliament on Tuesday extended a state of emergency at the country’s border with Belarus and at camps hosting migrants who arrived from there until Jan. 15. EU member states accuse Belarus of encouraging illegal migrants from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa to cross the border into the EU in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Minsk over human rights abuses. The state of emergency, in place since Nov. 9 when hundreds of migrants set up camps along Belarus border with Poland, allows border guards to use “mental coercion” and “proportional physical violence” to prevent migrants from entering Lithuania. Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte told parliament the numbers of migrants trying to cross the border has now decreased. The Lithuanian Interior Ministry said last week that about 10,000 illegal migrants were in Belarus. Until they are returned to their countries of origin, there was a risk that they could be sent towards Lithuania, it said. Lithuania’s declaration allows border guard to ban all travel to within 10 km (six miles) of the Belarus border. Mobile phones could be taken away from migrants and public gatherings near the border and in the camps could be forbidden.

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JAKARTA (Reuters) -- Indonesian President Joko Widodo promised on Tuesday to bolster evacuation efforts and repair damaged homes after visiting the site of a volcanic eruption on Java that has killed at least 34 people. The 3,676-metre Mt. Semeru volcano erupted on Saturday sending a cloud of ash into the sky and dangerous pyroclastic flows into villages below. Thousands of people have been displaced and 22 remain missing, according to the disaster mitigation agency. Search and rescue efforts continued on Tuesday but have been hampered by wind and rain, and limited equipment in some areas. Mt. Semeru erupted three times on Tuesday. Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation said on Monday there was potential for further flows of hot gas, ash and rocks. Mt. Semeru is one of more than 100 active volcanoes in Indonesia, in an area of high seismic activity atop multiple tectonic plates known as the “Pacific Ring of Fire”.

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LONDON (Reuters) -- The West must send a strong message to Russia to deter the Kremlin from invading Ukraine, including cutting Russia off from the SWIFT payment system, sanctioning the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and strengthening NATO’s eastern flank, Latvia said on Tuesday. “Russia needs to know in advance what the economic price tag is,” Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs told Reuters in an interview in London. Rinkēvičs, who has served as foreign minister since 2011, said it was unclear if Putin was simply trying to test the resolve of the West or if the Kremlin planned a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The European Union drug regulator gave its backing Tuesday to mixing different types of vaccines in initial vaccination and booster campaigns to battle the coronavirus. The European Medicines Agency said in a statement that using different types of vaccines together, known as heterologous vaccination, can provide protection against COVID-19. The announcement comes as much of Europe is facing rising infection and hospital rates and concerns about the new omicron variant. The EMA, together with the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said that a mix-and-match strategy could give nations more options in vaccination campaigns as much of the continent seeks to contain the latest surge in the pandemic.

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MOSCOW (AP) — A gunman opened fire in a Moscow city customer services facility, killing two people Tuesday and wounding three others, city authorities said. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Twitter that a suspect was detained. Sobyanin didn’t offer any details about the assailant or his possible motive, saying only that the incident took place in the southeast of the city. State news agency Tass reported, citing an unidentified law enforcement source, that the man drew out a gun and started firing shots after an argument with a security guard who asked him to put on a face mask, which is mandatory in such facilities. Tass also quoted witnesses of the incident as saying that a girl aged 10 or 11 was among the people wounded.

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NAIROBI (Reuters) -- A Kenyan police officer shot dead six people in a rampage in a neighborhood in the capital Nairobi on Tuesday and then shot and killed himself, police said. The officer first shot and killed his wife at their home before setting off with his service-issued AK-47 rifle to shoot dead another four people, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations said on Twitter. It described the shooter as a “rogue officer”. Francis Wahome, the officer in charge of Nairobi’s Dagoretti area, said another two people had been wounded in the incident. He declined to comment on what prompted the shooting. Three of the men who were killed were mourners who had just attended preparations for a funeral, the DCI said. Angry residents near where the incident took place later set fire to tires on a road in a protest against the violence, a Reuters journalist said.