Death Toll Rises in Armenia-Azerbaijan Fight Despite Calls for Pause

Fierce fighting raged between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces on Monday, sparking bellicose rhetoric from regional power Turkey despite international pleas for a halt in fighting between the longtime enemies. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a territorial dispute over the ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh for decades, with deadly fighting flaring up earlier this…

5K Recruits Receive Russia’s Coronavirus Vaccine

Around 5,000 volunteers including those who are at higher risk of severe infection have received Russia’s coronavirus vaccine as part of final clinical trials for safety and effectiveness, its developer said Monday. Moscow’s state-run Gamaleya research center, which developed the Sputnik V vaccine, has said post-registration clinical trials that began earlier this month would involve more…

Nobel Winner Alexievich Leaves Belarus for Treatment – Friend

Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich has left the country for treatment in Germany, her friend told AFP Monday, after the Nobel Literature Prize winner faced official pressure for supporting the opposition. The 72-year-old author, who has been summoned for questioning by investigators after joining the opposition’s Coordination Council, has gone to Germany for planned treatment, her…

Atommash has shipped the first Reactor Pressure Vessel for Akkuyu NPP (Turkey)

The Atommash plant (part of the machine-engineering division of ROSATOM – “Atomenergomash”) manufactured and shipped the Reactor Pressure Vessel for the first power unit of the “Akkuyu” nuclear power plant under construction. It took almost three years to manufacture the 330-ton Reactor pressure Vessel 12 meters long. A month earlier, four Steam Generators left the…

Six Months Into Pandemic, Migrant Workers in Russia Live in Makeshift Camps as They Wait to Go Home

KULLAR, DAGESTAN — Along the Caucasus Highway in Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan, about 30 kilometers from the border with Azerbaijan, hundreds of Azerbaijani migrants are sleeping in tents for weeks at a time as they try to return home.  Although Azerbaijan’s land border with Russia is officially closed, the country allows between 400 and…