Europe

GENEVA, July 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The UN Human Rights Council voted Wednesday to condemn recent Koran burning incidents, but many countries declined to back the measure, fearing it encroached too much on free speech.

Despite overwhelming condemnation of the Muslim holy book being desecrated, the vote brought more division than unity as Western nations said that more negotiation could have resulted in a unanimous consensus.

GENEVA, July 13 (NNN-XINHUA) — Ongoing outbreaks of bird flu have caused devastation to animal populations, and may now infect humans more easily, according to a joint release by three United Nations (UN) organizations.

Poultry, wild birds and some mammals have been affected by the outbreaks, and farmers’ livelihoods and the food trade damaged, the organizations said.

HELSINKI, July 13 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Thursday gave his assurance that the United States would stay committed to NATO despite "extreme elements" of the Republican Party, in remarks during a visit to Finland to welcome it as the alliance's latest member.

"I absolutely guarantee it," Biden told a press conference when pressed by a Finnish reporter about the U.S. commitment to NATO given political instability in the United States. Biden's predecessor, Republican former President Donald Trump, threatened to take the United States out of the alliance.

KYIV, July 13 (Reuters) - After the role of unmanned aerial vehicles in the Ukraine war expanded dramatically since Russia invaded 16 months ago, attention is turning to ground drones that developers say could be the next frontier in military innovation.

Among the Ukrainian engineers working in the sector is 22-year-old Yevhen Hnatok, who said he had already supplied several dozen remote-controlled ground vehicles for the armed forces.

MOSCOW, July 13 (Reuters) - A Russian general said he had been dismissed as a commander after telling the military leadership about the dire situation at the front in Ukraine, where he said Russian soldiers had been stabbed in the back by the failings of the top military brass.

After the June 24 mutiny by Wagner mercenaries, the biggest domestic challenge to the Russian state in decades, President Vladimir Putin has so far kept Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov in their jobs.

MOSCOW, July 13 (Xinhua) -- Russia considers the deployment of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine as a nuclear threat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday.

Lavrov made the comment in an interview with the Russian news agency Lenta.ru, during which he discussed the potential consequences of the decision of the United States and its allies to supply F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

"During the hostilities, our military will not check whether each specific aircraft of this type will be equipped for the delivery of nuclear weapons or not," Lavrov said.

BERLIN (AP) — The head of this year’s United Nations climate talks called Thursday for governments and businesses to tackle global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in all regions and sectors if they want to stop the planet from passing a key temperature limit agreed on more than seven years ago.

LONDON (AP) — Google said Thursday that it’s rolling out its AI-powered chatbot Bard across Europe and in Brazil, expanding its availability to hundreds of millions more users.

The company also said it’s adding more features to Bard as it scrambles to keep up with rival Microsoft — which uses OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT service in its Bing search engine — in the race to capitalize on generative artificial intelligence technology that has captured worldwide attention.

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian general in charge of forces fighting in southern Ukraine has been relieved of his duties after speaking out about problems faced by his troops, a move that reflected new fissures in the military command following a brief rebellion by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — President Joe Biden pledged Wednesday that western allies “will not waver” in defense of Ukraine, casting the struggle against Russian aggression as one of the world’s central challenges requiring a broad coalition of countries to stand in defense of freedom.

“Our unity will not falter,” Biden declared. “I promise you.”