Europe

MOSCOW (AP) — One American and two Russians blasted off Friday aboard a Russian spacecraft from a spaceport in Kazakhstan on a quick trip to the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. O’Hara will spend six months at the station while Kononenko and Chub will spend a year there.

BELGRADE, September 14. /TASS/: Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that his consultations with Prime Minister of unrecognized Kosovo Albin Kurti held in Brussels on Thursday were unsuccessful.

"We had talks, and I think they were unsuccessful in terms of finding a direct way to normalize relations. We all have our proposals. In the end, we accepted the EU’s compromise proposal, which Kurti was not ready to accept, and the meeting ended," the Serbian leader told reporters.

MINSK, September 14. /TASS/: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko arrived in Russia on a working visit, the BelTA news agency reported.

It earlier reported that the Belarusian leader departed for Russia to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 15. The report didn’t say where the meeting would take place.

MOSCOW, September 14. /TASS/: US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy has been summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry and issued a diplomatic note stating that the actions of the embassy’s first and second secretaries were inconsistent with diplomatic status, the ministry said.

They were declared personae non gratae and have to leave the country within seven days, it said.

MOSCOW, September 14. /TASS/: Moscow will consider all serious proposals to settle the conflict in Ukraine if they meet Russia’s legitimate interests, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at talks with Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Than Swe.

"We are ready to consider any serious proposals that will take into account the realities on the ground and the basic legitimate interests of the Russian Federation," the Russian minister said in opening remarks.

LONDON, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday it was expelling two U.S. diplomats whom it accused of working with a Russian national charged with collaborating with a foreign state.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement it had summoned U.S. envoy Lynne Tracy and told her that embassy First Secretary Jeffrey Sillin and Second Secretary David Bernstein must leave Russia within seven days.

The U.S. embassy confirmed the expulsions. There was no immediate comment from the State Department in Washington.

LAMPEDUSA, Italy, Sept 14 (Reuters) - The small Italian island of Lampedusa is being overwhelmed by the number of migrants arriving on its shores, its mayor said on Thursday, after thousands of people landed from North Africa on flimsy boats over the past two days.

Lampedusa sits in the Mediterranean between Tunisia, Malta and the larger Italian island of Sicily and is a first port of call for many migrants seeking to reach the European Union.

KYIV, Sept 14 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian missile attack on the Sevastopol Shipyard in Russian-annexed Crimea this week caused heavy damage to a large Russian landing ship and submarine, commercial satellite imagery showed.

Kyiv said on Wednesday the two vessels were likely beyond repair after the pre-dawn missile attack on the port city of Sevastopol. Russia's defence ministry confirmed the strike, but said the vessels would be fully repaired and return to service.

COPENHAGEN, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- Visiting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen officially gave the name "Laura Maersk" to the world's first methanol-powered container ship on Thursday in Copenhagen, hailing its owner "a pioneer, shaping the economy of the future."

MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/: The talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un were very informative, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"On the whole, the talks were very important, very informative. The very fact that Kim Jong Un came here is also a very important event from the point of view of bilateral relations," he said on Channel One, adding that North Korea is interested in the possibilities of cooperation with Russia in the sphere of aviation, transport and infrastructure.