Europe

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview published Sunday that Moscow has a “sufficient stockpile” of cluster munitions, and warned that Russia “reserves the right to take reciprocal action” if Ukraine uses the controversial weapons.

MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/: Moscow resolutely condemns Kiev’s plans to use terrorist methods against Russian nuclear power plants that may cause a large-scale nuclear disaster in Europe, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday.

The Russian diplomat issued this statement in the wake of a Ukrainian drone attack on the town of Kurchatov where the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is located.

MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/: The African leaders on a Ukraine peace mission will have an opportunity to talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the upcoming Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg in late July, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS on Saturday.

MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a phone talk with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa that obstacles still persisted for Russian exports under the gain deal, the Kremlin press office reported on Saturday.

The phone talk was held on July 15 at the initiative of the South African side, the Kremlin press office specified.

MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/: Moscow’s Basmanny District Court has ruled to arrest seven members of nationalist organizations suspected of an assassination attempt on journalists Margarita Simonyan and Ksenia Sobchak, the court’s press service told TASS on Saturday.

"The court has granted a request and selected custody as a restriction measure for the suspects who were earlier detained for the assassination attempt on Sobchak and Simonyan," the court said.

GENEVA, July 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The UN Human Rights Council called for transparency on the risks of artificial intelligence and for the data harvested by AI to be used responsibly.

An explosion in generative AI content since ChatGPT launched late last year has left authorities scrambling to figure out how to regulate such chatbots and ensure the technology does not endanger humanity.

GENEVA, July  15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Some 289 children are known to have died in the first half of 2023 while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, the United Nations said.

 The figure is double that recorded in the first six months of 2022, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said, as it called for expanded safe, legal and accessible pathways for children to seek protection in Europe.

LONDON, July 15 (Reuters) - British defence minister Ben Wallace will not stand as a member of parliament (MP) in the next UK national election, and will leave government when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak carries out his next cabinet reshuffle, he told The Sunday Times newspaper.

Wallace, a member of the ruling Conservative party, has been MP for Wyre and Preston North and its predecessor constituency in northwest England since 2005.

He has been defence secretary for four years, helping lead Britain's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

July 15 (Reuters) - Russia on Saturday demanded the immediate release of a senior Orthodox cleric detained in Kyiv on suspicion of inflaming religious hatred and justifying Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

A Kyiv court ordered pre-trial detention on Friday for Metropolitan Pavlo, a senior figure in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who had been under house arrest since April.

July 15 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in which they discussed the Black Sea grain deal, due to expire on Monday, and a summit in South Africa next month, the Kremlin said on Saturday.

Ramaphosa finds himself in an awkward position as host of the BRICS summit because of an arrest warrant issued against Putin in March by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which accused him of the war crime of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia.