Europe's biggest economy recorded 112,323 new infections over the past 24 hours and 239 fatalities, the Robert Koch Institute said.

Blinken, who will meet Wednesday in Kyiv with President Volodymyr Zelensky, will "reinforce the United States' commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

"It is deeply regrettable that this took place at a time of national mourning and Number 10 (Downing Street) has apologised to the palace," Johnson's spokesman told reporters.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev asked for assistance from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) last week as violence gripped half of the country while he dismissed some of his senior security officials who were later charged with treason.

Opposition leader Keir Starmer and even members of his own party have called for him to resign after he admitted to attending the event in Downing Street's garden during Britain's first lockdown in May 2020, and there was little sympathy on the streets of the British capital.

The WHO said the global surge in cases was being driven by Omicron, which is more transmissible than the previously dominant Delta variant.

"I know the rage they feel with me over the government I lead when they think that in Downing Street itself the rules are not being properly followed by the people who make the rules," an ashen-faced Johnson told parliament.

"A contingent of CSTO peacekeeping forces has been sent to Kazakhstan -- and I want to emphasize this -- for a limited time period," Putin said during a meeting of leaders from ex-Soviet countries, during which he added that Kazakhstan had been targeted by "international terrorism" and vowed that Russia would not allow "revolutions" in the region. 

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said over the weekend it was entirely possible the diplomacy could end after a single meeting, and even US Secretary of State Antony Blinken played down expectations for the high-stakes talks.

Security forces appeared to have reclaimed the streets of the country's main city on Friday, a day after Russian paratroopers arrived to help quash the uprising.

Tokayev told Putin that the situation in Kazakhstan was stabilizing and thanked him for the deployment of a Russian-led military bloc to Kazakhstan to curb the worst violence the Central Asian country has witnessed since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Blinken on Friday challenged Russia's justification for sending forces into Kazakhstan after days of violent unrest in the Central Asian country.

Some 313 deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test were reported on Saturday, taking the total number of fatalities on this measure to 150,057.

Mukhtar Ablyazov, a former energy minister and bank chairman wanted in his home country on a range of charges, in an interview with AFP also described a Russian-led military intervention as an "occupation" and urged Kazakhs to stand up to the foreign forces.

Opponents including rivals in the 2022 presidential elections accused Macron of overstepping the line with the language of his comments, while the furore they caused prompted a new delay in the passing of legislation aimed at tightening France's COVID rules.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson resisted imposing stringent lockdown measures in England ahead of New Year as Omicron fuelled a spike in cases to record highs.

In a statement issued along the lines of his frequent blessings to Republican candidates in primary elections at home, Trump wrote that the Hungarian leader has his "Complete support and Endorsement" in elections expected in April.

* The British government has asked public sector managers to test their contingency plans against a worst-case scenario of 25% staff absence, as part of efforts to minimise disruption from surging infections.

With a Russian military buildup on Ukraine's borders, Biden "made clear" to Zelensky during a phone call that the "United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.

The continent has once again become the pandemic's epicentre in recent months, and is battling an upsurge of cases spurred on by the highly transmissible Omicron strain of the virus.

The blistering surge was illustrated by AFP's tally of 6.55 million new infections reported globally in the week ending Tuesday, the highest the figure has been since the World Health Organization declared a COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

According to updated government figures, there were 10,462 people in hospital with Covid in England on Wednesday morning, the highest level since March 1. Fresh UK-wide data was not available.

Omicron is behind rapid virus spikes in several countries, including those where it has already overtaken the previously-dominant Delta variant, the WHO said in its Covid-19 weekly epidemiological update.

For the second year, surging infections have complicated yuletide plans from Sydney to Seville.

The preliminary studies -- one paper from Scotland and the other from England -- were cautiously welcomed by experts, who nonetheless stressed that any advantage in milder outcomes could still be negated by the new strain's heightened infectiousness, which may still lead to more overall severe cases. 

"This is what the modelling is showing," he told BFM-TV in an interview, also announcing that France would from Wednesday open vaccinations to five- to 11-year-olds for the first time.

Russia seeks more engagement with Indonesia and Southeast Asia and is preparing for a big splash next year to increase its visibility, Russian envoy Lyudmila Vorobieva has said.

Moderna hopes to start clinical trials early next year on a vaccine to protect against the fast-spreading Omicron variant but for now is focussing on a booster dose of its current mRNA-1273 vaccine.

In response, his office said there were staff meetings in the garden that day.

Omicron is spreading rapidly in countries with high levels of population immunity, but it is unclear if this is due to the virus' ability to evade immunity, its inherent increased transmissibility or a combination of both, the WHO said in an update.