News in Brief

Date: 20 December 2021 - 21:25

News ID: ۹۷۹۷۱

MINSK (AFP) -- Belarus said Monday one of its diplomats was injured following an attack on its embassy in London, amid international backlash over a migrant crisis. The Belarusian foreign ministry said in a statement that its embassy in London was attacked by suspects it suggested belonged to a “radical immigrant group.” It said they damaged the facade of the building and “physically attacked” diplomats who arrived at the scene. One of the diplomats was taken to hospital with a broken nose, a mild concussion and a missing tooth, the ministry said. Several of the attackers were detained by London police as they attempted to flee the scene by foot. The attack “eloquently demonstrates the true face and methods of fanatics, whom a number of countries of the collective West are persistently trying to pass off as peaceful protesters,” the statement said. The ministry said it had summoned Britain’s acting charge d’affaires and expressed its “strong protest” over the incident.

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BERLIN (AP) — A truck ran into a U.S. military vehicle on a highway in Bavaria on Monday in what German police said was an accident. The truck driver was believed to have been killed, but the military said there were no known injuries among U.S. personnel. The crash happened on the A3 highway near Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz. The U.S. military vehicles were on the side strip of the highway and police said an articulated truck ran into one of them from behind. Several vehicles caught fire. Police said they believed the truck driver was killed in the crash, in which his cab was destroyed, German news agency dpa reported. The military said there were no injuries “at this time” among U.S. personnel but eight soldiers were taken to a hospital for a precautionary screening. The 7th Army Training Command said that an Army truck traveling from Hohenfels toward Grafenwoehr pulled over to the side of the highway after it was separated from the rest of the convoy. As it waited, it was hit by a civilian commercial truck, and the collision resulted in damage to three U.S. Army vehicles, it said.

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AMSTERDAM (AFP) -- Dutch prosecutors said Monday that four suspects accused of downing a Malaysia Airlines flight with a surface-to-air missile were seeking to serve “their own military interests,” as they launched closing arguments in the closely-watched trial. Four suspects are being tried in absentia for launching a BUK missile that hit flight MH17 over war-torn eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people on board. Prosecutors launched closing arguments in the trial Monday, saying the four suspects played pivotal roles in securing the BUK system, which was most likely intended to strike a Ukrainian war plane. International investigators say the BUK missile was originally brought from a Russian military base, ostensibly to be used in the fight against Ukrainian forces. Berger said the men on trial “did not press the button themselves, but... used it for their armed struggle with the aim of destroying an aircraft.” The four suspects on trial are Russian nationals Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko.

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THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The European Union’s drugs regulator gave the green light Monday to a fifth COVID-19 vaccine for use in the 27-nation bloc, granting conditional marketing authorization to the two-dose vaccine made by U.S. biotech company Novavax.The European Medicines Agency decision to recommend granting conditional marketing authorization for the vaccine for people aged 18 and over, which must be confirmed by the EU’s executive commission, comes as many European nations are battling surges in infections and amid concerns about the spread of the new omicron variant. Novavax says it currently is testing how its shots will hold up against the omicron variant, and like other manufacturers has begun formulating an updated version to better match that variant in case in case it’s eventually needed.

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ADDIS ABABA (AFP) -- Tigrayan rebels announced on Monday they were withdrawing from several areas of northern Ethiopia and retreating to Tigray, marking a new turning point in the 13-month war which has left thousands of people dead. The decision was made a few weeks ago, Getachew Reda, spokesman for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front said, adding that TPLF fighters were carrying out “phase-by-phase withdrawals” from various towns, including the UNESCO World Heritage site of Lalibela, which has changed hands several times during the conflict. The move marks a major reversal by the rebels, who previously dismissed the government’s insistence on their withdrawal from Afar and Amhara for talks to begin as “an absolute non-starter”. The conflict between forces loyal to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the TPLF has triggered a severe humanitarian crisis and prompted the UN’s top rights body to order an international probe into alleged abuses.

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GOMA (AFP) -- At least one policeman died Monday in the eastern DR Congo city of Goma as police fired tear gas and live bullets to break up a protest against rising crime. The demonstrators converged on arterial roads early in the morning, setting up barricades and burning tires in the capital of the Nord Kivu province, an AFP reporter said. Police fired tear gas and used live rounds to disperse the crowd, the reporter said, adding that a policeman was killed and his body taken to the local morgue. The main market in the city centre was closed, as well as banks and schools, following the call for a general shutdown to denounce rising crime in the city of some 600,000 people. Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi placed the eastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri under a “state of siege” in May to intensify a battle against rebels, with soldiers replacing civil servants in key positions.