LISBON, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Portugal is set to build a new airport in its capital Lisbon as the country's tourism industry is expected to gradually recover to pre-pandemic levels, said Prime Minister Antonio Costa here on Tuesday.

The government will approve the decision to formally launch the new Lisbon airport project on Thursday, Costa said in his opening speech at the 6th Portuguese Tourism Summit marking World Tourism Day.

He said it is a "decision for the good of the whole country," representing "a unique and irreversible window of opportunity."

CAIRO, Sept 27 (NNN-MENA) – The Egyptian Foreign Ministry, yesterday, condemned in the strongest terms, the deadly school shooting at a Russian school.

“It is a heinous terrorist attack that killed and wounded a large number of people, including children,” said Ahmed Abu Zeid, spokesperson of the ministry.

He expressed “Egypt’s condolences for the Russian government, and families of the painful accident, wishing the wounded speedy recovery.”

27 Sep 2022; MEMO: Father Manuel Musallam, a Palestinian catholic priest, yesterday called for all Christians in Palestine to mobilise and protect Al-Aqsa Mosque from planned Israeli settler raids in the coming days and weeks.

In a press release, Musallam said that the "success of the settler plans to demolish Al-Aqsa Mosque means the demolition of the Christian and Islamic existence in Jerusalem."

KIGALI, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) would spur trade and investment cooperation between Africa and China after easing connectivity and transportation challenges, a Rwandan legislator said.

In a recent interview in the capital city Kigali, Emmanuel Bugingo, the chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Security in the Chamber of Deputies, said the BRI will bridge the infrastructure gap in Rwanda, thereby connecting the country to Africa and the rest of the world.

27 Sep 2022; MEMO: The policies of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the occupied West Bank have "destroyed Palestinian institutions", the Head of National Democratic Forum, Naser Al-Qudwa, said yesterday.

PA policies "led to the absence of law and flagrant violations of human rights that keep up with the policies of the Israeli occupation," he explained.

NEW YORK (AP) — Civil rights lawyers and Democratic senators are pushing for legislation that would limit U.S. law enforcement agencies’ ability to buy cellphone tracking tools to follow people’s whereabouts, including back years in time, and sometimes without a search warrant.

MOSCOW, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Farmers are among the Russians being drafted into the military, President Vladimir Putin told a meeting with officials on Tuesday, signalling potential further risks for the 2023 crop.

Russia is the world's largest wheat exporter. Autumn is a busy season for farmers as they sow winter wheat for the next year's crop and harvest soybeans and sunflower seeds. Winter grain sowing has already been significantly delayed by rains.

TOKYO, September 27. /TASS/: Russia hopes to develop cultural ties, including inter-museum exchanges with China, which has been waiting for opportunities to introduce Russian culture to its general public as well as with India, Special Representative of the Russian President for International Cultural Cooperation Mikhail Shvydkoy told Russian journalists on Tuesday.

RIYADH, Sept 27 (NNN-SPA) – Chinese phone maker, Vivo, unveiled yesterday, two 5G smartphones in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh.

At its first offline launch of new products in the kingdom, Vivo presented the latest additions to its 5G smartphones V series: V25 and V25 Pro, which feature superior photography.

The V25 and V25 Pro also come with a new Vlog Movie feature, that improves the filming experience with video templates and tutorials to guide users on how to shoot in different scenarios.

Sept 27 (Reuters) - First partial results from votes cast inside Russia on whether four Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine should be incorporated into Russia showed overwhelming majorities in favour, state news agency RIA said on Tuesday, after so-called referendums that Kyiv and the West have denounced as a sham.

Hastily arranged votes had taken place over five days in the four areas - Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - that make up about 15% of Ukrainian territory. Displaced people from those regions were able to cast votes in Russia.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 27 (APP):The United Nations and its partners are scaling up relief operations in Pakistan’s flood-affected regions, as vector-borne and water-borne diseases spread in the underwater areas of Sindh and Balochistan provinces, a UN Spokesperson said Tuesday.

Responding to a question at his regular noon briefing, Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric also said that the outbreak of those infectious diseases was a matter of “growing concern.”

MOSCOW, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. delegation in Geneva has admitted that Washington had been conducting biological research on low-income citizens from Ukraine at a meeting of the states parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, Russia's Sputnik news agency has reported.