Europe

20 Apr 2023; MEMO: The Greek government, on Wednesday, morning admitted the opposition's claim that Israeli-made Predator spyware was exported to Sudan via Greece, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Speaking to major national radio station, REAL FM, Deputy Foreign Minister, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis said: "The license to export Predator to Sudan was given but this has nothing to with the civil war there."

BERN, Switzerland (AP) — Nearly 300 Tyrannosaurus rex bones that were dug up from three sites in the United States and assembled into a single skeleton sold Tuesday at an auction in Switzerland for 4.8 million francs ($5.3 million), below the expected price.

Crafted into an open-mouth pose, the T. rex skeleton measuring 11.6 meters long (38 feet long) and 3.9 meters high (12.8 feet) high came in under the anticipated range of 5 million to 8 million francs when it went under the hammer at the Koller auction house in Zurich.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — American-made Patriot missiles have arrived in Ukraine, the country’s defense minister said Wednesday, providing Kyiv with a long-sought new shield against the Russian airstrikes that have devastated cities and civilian infrastructure.

The U.S. agreed in October to send the surface-to-air systems, which can target aircraft, cruise missiles and shorter-range ballistic missiles such as those that Russia has used to bombard residential areas and the Ukrainian power grid.

SOFIA, April 19. /TASS/: The technical government of Bulgaria has decided to ban import of a number of products from Ukraine from April 24 to June 30. Bulgarian Agriculture Minister Yavor Gechev announced this at a briefing following the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers.

MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/: The conversation with the US, British and Canadian ambassadors summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday took a harsh tone, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"They were summoned to the Foreign Ministry and everything was explained to them, in a tough tone, without any desire to soften things or soft-pedal the situation," the diplomat told Radio Sputnik on Wednesday.

Zakharova stressed that, if Western diplomats continue to act this way, such behavior would be deemed inconsistent with their declared status.

MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/: The Kiev regime is seeking to exploit the Black Sea initiative with might and main, not shunning either the abuse of the rules of procedure or demands for bribes from shipowners. This is stated in the comments by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, which was released on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/: The deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has warned of the dangers South Korea's plans to supply weapons to Ukraine are fraught with.

"There have emerged new enthusiasts eager to help our enemies. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has said that in principle his country is ready to supply the Kiev regime with weapons," Medvedev said on his Telegram channel on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/: The trilateral agreements inked by Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia for a possible settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict constitute a genuine basis for finding a way out of the situation, but the provisions of these agreements must be observed, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

"We are ready to welcome any steps by the parties involved that could ease tensions and would contribute to further progress regarding the implementation of the trilateral agreements," Peskov said.

LYON (France), April 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Over 14,000 people have been arrested and 8,000 weapons seized in an anti-firearms operation across Central and South America, Interpol said.

As well as weapons, the raids swept up over 200 tonnes of cocaine and other drugs worth $5.7 billion, as well as 370 tonnes of drug precursors (chemical ingredients), the France-based police cooperation body said in a statement.

Dubbed “Trigger IX”, it was “the biggest firearms operation ever coordinated by Interpol,” it added.

VLADIVOSTOK, April 19 (NNN-XINHUA) — Two Russian cosmonauts conducted their first spacewalk this year on Wednesday after a hiatus caused by the depressurization of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft.

According to a report by Russia’s RIA Novosti, Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin ventured out into space to move a radiator from one module of the International Space Station (ISS) to another.

The spacewalk was the second for Petelin and the fourth for Prokopyev.