Europe

MOSCOW, July 4. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed Iran’s accession to membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), noting the importance of assisting Tehran in adapting to all of the alliance’s processes.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran will now participate in our organization in a full-fledged format. I would like to extend congratulations on this occasion to the president of Iran, Mr. Ebrahim Raisi, and sincere greetings to him," the Russian leader said at the SCO’s virtual online summit being hosted by India, the current one-year SCO chair.

MOSCOW, July 4. /TASS/: An armed attack in Chechnya on journalist Yelena Milashina and lawyer Alexander Nemov was a serious incident requiring vigorous response measures, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

GENEVA, July 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The El Nino weather phenomenon, which triggers higher global temperatures, is set to continue throughout 2023 and will be “at least of moderate strength”, the United Nations said.

El Nino is a naturally occurring climate pattern typically associated with increased heat worldwide, as well as drought in some parts of the world and heavy rains elsewhere.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on June 8 that El Nino had arrived, warning that it “could lead to new records for temperatures”.

BRUSSELS, July 4 (Reuters) - NATO decided on Tuesday to extend Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s contract by a further year, opting to stick with an experienced leader as war rages on the alliance’s doorstep rather than try to agree on a successor.

Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, has been the transatlantic security alliance’s leader since 2014 and his tenure had already been extended three previous times.

MOSCOW, July 4 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin reassured Asian leaders of Russia's stability and unity on Tuesday in his first appearance at an international forum since the country was rocked by a brief armed mutiny last month.

"The Russian people are consolidated as never before," Putin told a virtual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a group that also includes China and India.

MOSCOW, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Five Ukrainian drones were shot down over the New Moscow region in Russia on Tuesday morning with no casualties reported, causing disruptions at the Vnukovo airport for almost three hours.

According to RIA Novosti, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the drones were targeting objects in the Moscow region and the New Moscow region, and that four of them were destroyed by air defense and one by electronic warfare.

FRANKFURT, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Joachim Nagel, president of the central bank of Germany (Deutsche Bundesbank), on Monday said that inflation in the eurozone remains too high and that the European Central Bank (ECB) still has "a way to go" to bring it down to the target level.

Addressing the 2023 edition of the Euro Finance Summit here, Nagel defended the ECB's decision to aggressively hike interest rates in a bid to tame the eurozone's "stubborn" inflation.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — The prime ministers of the Netherlands and Luxembourg on Monday urged Serbia and Kosovo to act to defuse recent tensions that have threatened to push the Balkan region into instability as Europe faces Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

Dutch PM Mark Rutte and Xavier Bettel, the Luxembourg PM, spoke after meeting Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade. Rutte and Bettel travel to Kosovo on Tuesday for meetings with top officials there.

(AP) --- The Russian military said Tuesday it fended off a Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow that prompted authorities to briefly close one of the city’s airports.

The attack, which follows previous similar raids on the Russian capital during the previous months, comes after a mutiny launched by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, which saw his Wagner troops approach Moscow in the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in more than two decades of his rule.

PARIS (AP) — France has returned 35 people — 10 women and 25 minors — from a sprawling camp in northeast Syria housing thousands of people linked to Islamic State extremists.

Al-Hol Camp — named after a town near the Iraqi border — holds about 51,000 people, including many widows, wives and children of Islamic State fighters. Iraqis make up nearly half the population, but a sizeable minority are from outside the Middle East.