Reuters. Russia is wasting large volumes of natural gas by burning it in a huge orange flare near the Finnish border at a time when it has sharply cut deliveries to the European Union, scientists and analysts said on Friday (August 26). Analysts from Rystad, an energy consultancy based in Norway, described it as…
Reuters. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday (August 26) that his military’s warplanes had been modified to carry nuclear weapons and that Minsk would react immediately if the West caused it any problems. Lukashenko said he had agreed the move to modernise Belarusian warplanes with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Belta news agency…
Ukraine has exported 3.41 million tonnes of grain, including 2.18 million tonnes of corn (64% of all grain exports), 937,000 tonnes of wheat (27.5%), and 274,000 tonnes of barley (8%), since the beginning of the 2022-2023 marketing year (July 2022-June 2023). The pace of grain exports since the start of the current marketing year…
Reuters. Iran’s military continued into a second day of drone exercises on Thursday (August 25), state media reported. Footage showed various types of drones being launched and dropping munitions on desert targets. The two-day drills were reported by state TV to involve 150 drones and cover Iran’s Gulf coast and most of its…
Reuters. Sports presenter Sinem Okten was surprised to see her visa application to Europe’s Schengen area rejected twice, having visited often to cover matches and interview figures like Italian keeper Gianluigi Buffon and Liverpool’s Juergen Klopp. “I applied first to Germany then to France. Both rejected my application,” she said. “I’ve travelled abroad numerous…
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry reacted aggressively on the appointment of Philip Reeker as US OSCE Minsk Group. US State Secretary Antony J. Blinken announced about his new position on August 24. “The statement by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on the appointment of Philip Reeker as the chief negotiating adviser in the Caucasus is…
Congressman Josh Gottheimer referred to the recent attacks on Artsakh by Azerbaijan. “I condemn the recent attacks by Azerbaijan in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) — injuring and killing people in the region. The U.S. must do more to hold Azerbaijan accountable” Congressman Tweeted.
Reuters. Thunderstorms and heavy rain led to flooding in parts of northern Greece on Wednesday (August 24). Holidaymakers in Toroni, a popular holiday spot on the Chalkidiki peninsula, were forced indoors by the heavy downpour. Streets in the town were flooded and a stream washed out parts of a local beach. Across the…
Foreign Minister of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan had a phone conversation with the Foreign Minister of France Catherine Colonna, Armenia’s MFA Press Office informs. Minister Mirzoyan expressed his condolences to the French side on the human casualties caused by the storm in Corsica on August 18. Minister Colonna, on her part, expressed condolences to the…
Russian National Guard detained two Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant employees who handed over information on location of personnel and vehicles at the power plant to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, National Guard press office told TASS. “Russian National Guard servicemen thwarted illegal actions that threatened security of the Zaporozhye Nuclear power Plant – special addressed…
State Development Corporation VEB.RF made the transition to rubles and does not make transactions in dollars and euro anymore, its CEO Igor Shuvalov said at the meeting with President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, Kremlin website reports. “We shifted to ruble transactions exclusively. We also use other currencies of friendly states but we do not…
The meeting of the commissions for demarcation and border security between Armenia and Azerbaijan is planned to take place by the end of August in Moscow, Russia, Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan’s office said. No separate agenda of items is decided yet.
Reuters. Iran accused the United States on Monday (August 22) of procrastinating in efforts to revive Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal – a charge denied by Washington, which said a deal was closer than two weeks ago because of apparent Iranian flexibility. U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said talks regarding the deal had ‘languished,’…
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday (August 22) that a response from Iran to the EU’s latest proposal on a nuclear deal with the U.S. was “reasonable”. “There was a proposal from me as coordinator of the negotiations… and a response from Iran that I considered reasonable. It was transmitted…
The weather conditions complicate the fire extinguishing process in Borjomi Municipality, said Davit Sukhishvili, head of the Fire and Rescue Forces Department of the Emergency Situations Management Service, on Sunday Georgian Public Broadcaster reports. Three border police helicopters have been mobilized on the spot, awaiting the strong wind to subside. Up to 250…
A passenger bus has hit an ambulance, a fire truck and an outside broadcast vehicle in southeast Turkey on Aug. 20, killing at least 16 passengers, including journalists, Turkish media report. The accident occurred on the Gaziantep (Ayntap)- Nizip Highway. 21 passengers were also wounded, Gaziantep Governor Davut Gül has said. Among the…
Reuters. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Saturday (August 20) the United Nations is working with the United States and European Union to overcome obstacles to Russian food and fertilisers reaching world markets. Guterres said that under a U.N.-brokered deal agreed in Turkey last month to resume Ukraine’s grain exports cut off since Russia’s…
Iran has officially dropped a key “red line” demand that had been a major sticking point in efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal, a senior administration official told CNN. In its Monday response to a draft nuclear deal agreement proposed by the European Union — which the EU has described as a “final”…
Toivo Klaar, EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia informs that Armenian and Azerbaijani top officials had a meeting in Brussels. Armen Grigoryan, Secretary of Security Council of Armenia and Hikmet Hajiyev, Advisor to the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, had a meeting joined by EU representatives. “Good and…
Reuters. Turkey and Ukraine signed a deal on Thursday (August 18) to reconstruct infrastructure damaged in Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, state-owned Anadolu news agency reported as their leaders Tayyip Erdogan and Volodymyr Zelenskiy met in Lviv. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who arrived in Ukraine on Wednesday (August 17), met with Zelenskiy and…
Reuters. Four times the tonnage of the original Open Arms rescue tugboat and with a capacity to carry up to 1,000 people, the shapely Open Arms Uno made its first rescue on Wednesday (August 17) picking up 101 migrants stranded on a wooden boat off the Tunisian coast. “Sit down, if you don’t sit…
France expresses its solidarity with Armenia on this first day of national mourning declared after the August 14th explosion at a shopping mall in Yerevan, the Foreign Ministry of the French Republic website reports. “We offer our condolences to the families of those who died and wish those who were injured a speedy recovery….
An ethnic-Armenian Turkish lawyer is set to become the first ever Armenian to hold the post of district governor in Turkey after his appointment as the District Governor of Babadag, a city and district in the Denizli Province, Agos reports. Berk Acar, born in 1995, will assume the position in the coming days. He…
Spanish firefighters were seen running from a violent blaze as they scrambled to stop a wildfire from reaching a residential area in Bejis in the Spanish region of Valencia, footage released by the Castello firefighters on Wednesday (August 17) showed. Two firefighters were injured in the event which took place on Tuesday (August 16),…
Tehran is ready to reach with Washington an agreement on prisoner swaps that would not be linked to the talks on reviving the nuclear deal, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Wednesday. “Away from the nuclear deal, Iran has repeatedly informed the United States across various channels of its willingness to address…
A contract has been signed to deliver a second regiment of the S-400 missile system to Turkey, with the production of some components to be localized there, the head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSVTS), Dmitry Shugayev, told TASS on the sidelines of the Army-2022 international forum on Tuesday. “A corresponding agreement…
Salome Zourabichvili, President of Georgia, offered her condolences over the deadly explosion in a Yerevan market. “Deeply saddened by the shocking explosion in Yerevan. I express my deepest condolences to the families who have lost their loved ones, but also strength and resilience to the emergency workers. I stand with the people of Armenia”, she…
Irakli Garibashvili, Prime Minister of Georgia, offered his condolences over the deadly blast at a Yerevan market, which left 16 dead, eight missing. “Deeply saddened by the news of the fatal fireworks storage explosion in Armenia’s capital, leaving people missing & injured. My sincere condolences go out to our Armenian friends in this time…
Reuters. The first ship to depart Ukraine under a U.N.-brokered deal to resume grain exports from the country two weeks ago was approaching the Syrian port of Tartous on Sunday (August 14), two shipping sources said. The Sierra Leone-flagged Razoni set sail from Ukraine’s Odesa port on Aug. 1 under the deal between Moscow…
Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament) has voted to support President Volodimir Zelensky’s decree extending the martial law and mobilization in Ukraine for 90 more days, till November 21, Ukrainian lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak said on Monday. “Parliament has supported bill 7664 on the extension of the martial law for 90 days, till November 21, 2022. The…
