Europe

MOSCOW, Apr 8 (NNN-TASS) – U.S. biological research, which is conducted secretly, is fraught with the risk of virus leakages, the Russian Defence Ministry said, yesterday.

“The United States has never been explicit about how dedicated it is, to ensure research safety in the bio-labs it oversees,” Igor Kirillov, chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defence Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, said during a briefing.

LONDON, April 8 (Xinhua) -- Women being sexually abused is "a common experience" across the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI), east of the U.S. city of San Francisco, British newspaper The Guardian has reported.

The report told the story of Cristal, 31, who came forward about the horrific sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of multiple guards at the federal prison in Dublin, California. But now Cristal is in immigration detention, awaiting deportation to Mexico, a country she left as a baby.

DNIPROPETROVSK OBLAST, Ukraine (AP) — Deep underground in southeastern Ukraine, miners work around the clock extracting coal to power the country’s war effort and to provide civilians with light and heat.

Coal is central to meeting Ukraine’s energy needs following the Russia’s military’s 6-month campaign to destroy power stations and other infrastructure, the chief engineer of a mining company in Dnipropetrovsk province said.

BALLINA, Ireland (AP) — Joe Blewitt is just about the busiest man in Ballina. His phone rings constantly with calls from locals and the world’s media as he prepares to welcome a relative — U.S. President Joe Biden.

Biden is scheduled to travel to Ireland next week, with a stop in Ballina, the town from which one of his great-great grandfathers left for the United States in 1850. Blewitt, a distant cousin who first met Biden when he came to town as vice president in 2016, said the U.S. leader pledged to return once he’d won the presidency.

07 Apr 2023; MEMO: Sweden's police said Thursday that they had appealed a court ruling which overturned a police decision to stop two demonstrations where protesters planned to burn the Muslim holy book the Quran, reports Anadolu Agency.

"The police authority believes that the principles of the issue are important and it is therefore urgent that it is examined by a higher court," the police said in a statement.

07 Apr 2023; MEMO: Russia on Friday called on Israel and Palestine to refrain from "confrontational steps" and to end the "escalation" of violence, reports Anadolu agency.

"We call on the parties involved in the conflict to refrain from confrontational steps, to act in the interests of preventing further escalation, ending violence and restoring a sustainable cease-fire," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

MOSCOW, April 7. /TASS/: Russian air defense forces intercepted two rockets of the US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket system and destroyed 11 Ukrainian drones over the past day during the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Friday.

PARIS, April 7. /TASS/: The visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to China hasn’t caused a turnaround in Beijing’s position about the Ukrainian conflict and Russia, Le Monde reported on Friday.

The French president on Thursday tried to convince his Chinese counterpart "to bring Russia to its senses," but Chinese President Xi Jinping "has not broken the benevolence displayed by Beijing towards Moscow," the newspaper said in a story about the talks of the two leaders.

MOSCOW, Apr 7 (NNN-TASS) – Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and Belarusian President, Alexander Lukashenko, vowed yesterday to push ahead the integration process between the two countries.

The two leaders made the remarks when jointly chairing a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Russia and Belarus at the Kremlin.

At the meeting, Putin noted that, “significant achievements” had been made in the integration of 28 prioritised sectors, approved during the previous Supreme State Council meeting in 2021.

KYIV, April 7 (Reuters) - Ukraine's leaders discussed ways to prevent leaks of military information on Friday after secret documents detailing U.S. and NATO efforts to help the country plan a counter-offensive against Russia's invasion reportedly appeared on social media.

The New York Times said on Thursday, citing senior U.S. officials, that classified war documents were posted this week on Twitter and Telegram, which is widely used in Russia.