Europe

July 2 (Reuters) - Yevgeny Prigozhin's media holding group is to shut down, the director of one of its outlets said, highlighting the mercenary chief's worsening fortunes a week after the collapse of a brief mutiny staged by his Wagner Group fighters.

Under a deal that halted the mutiny, Prigozhin, a former ally of President Vladimir Putin, was allowed to go into exile in Belarus and his men given the choice of joining him, being integrated into Russia's armed forces or returning home.

ROME, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Qu Dongyu was re-elected as director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) here on Sunday during the ongoing 43rd session of the FAO Conference.

Qu was first elected in June 2019 to head the UN agency and is the first Chinese national to serve in the position.

LONDON (AP) — New and expanded powers for British police took effect on Sunday, including measures targeting activists who stop traffic and major building works with protests.

Authorities have repeatedly condemned environmental protest groups, including Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, which have sought to raise awareness about the urgency of climate change by staging multiple high-profile protests at the busiest highways and roads. Their protests in recent years often caused serious disruption for motorists.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — After a relative lull, Russia launched a drone attack early Sunday on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, officials said. It was the first such attack of the war in 12 days.

All of the Iranian-made Shahed exploding drones were detected and shot down, according to Serhii Popko, the head of the Kyiv city administration. In addition to the city itself, the surrounding Kyiv region was targeted. Kyiv regional Gov. Ruslan Kravchenko reported that one person was wounded by falling debris from a destroyed drone.

PARIS (AP) — Young rioters in France clashed with police into early Sunday and targeted a mayor’s home with a burning car, injuring members of his family, as the country saw a fifth night of unrest after the police killing of a teenager. However, overall violence appeared to lessen from previous nights.

Police made 719 more arrests, bringing the total number of people detained to more than 3,000 following a mass security deployment aimed at quelling France’s worst social upheaval in years.

01 July 2023; AA: Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) head coach Christophe Galtier was reportedly placed in police custody on Friday following allegations of making racist remarks against Black and Muslim players during his time at OGC Nice, his former club.

French daily Le Parisien reported that Galtier, 56, was held by the Nice police to provide a statement regarding the alleged remarks made during his tenure in 2021.

02 July 2023; MEMO: The EU on Saturday said burning a copy of the Quran or any other holy book "is offensive, and disrespectful and a clear act of provocation", Anadolu reports.

The remarks came after a person identified as Salwan Momika burned a copy of the Muslim holy book under police protection in front of a Stockholm mosque on Wednesday.

The desecration was timed to coincide with Eid al-Adha, one of the major Islamic religious festivals celebrated by Muslims worldwide.

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/: The deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil does not violate the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) because Moscow does not cede control over them to Minsk, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said.

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/: The Ukrainian government has decided to ban monks of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church from using some premises at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and is demanding they vacate these premises by July 4, according to a lawyer for the church’s lawyer.

The lawyer, Nikita Chekman, said the Ukrainian Culture Ministry made the restrictions known in a letter, a copy of which he posted on Telegram.

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/: Russia and Cuba resumed regular direct air service as the first flight since the two countries suspended service last year took off from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on Saturday.

Boeing-777 flights will be carried out by Aeroflot’s subsidiary, Rossiya Airlines. Rossiya Spokesman Sergey Starikov said the demand for tickets was enormous. It takes about 13 hours to fly from Moscow to Varadero.

Flights will be operated twice a week, on Thursdays and Saturdays. And starting from September, the program will be expanded to three flights per week.