Europe

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - A British court said on Thursday that Mike Lynch, the British tech billionaire who sold his company Autonomy to Hewlett Packard, can be extradited to the United States to face charges including securities fraud related to the $11 billion deal.

Lynch's lawyer said if Britain's Home Secretary now decides to allow the extradition, Lynch will appeal.

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Britain on Thursday sanctioned one of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's envoys, Alex Saab, in connection with an allegedly corrupt deal to obtain supplies for Maduro’s government-run food subsidy programme.

Saab, a Colombian national, is currently detained in Cape Verde facing extradition to the United States, which accuses him of helping Maduro's government skirt U.S. sanctions imposed in 2019. 

NAPLES, July 22 (Reuters) - Environment and energy ministers from the Group of 20 rich nations were making little progress on Thursday on how to reach climate goals, officials said, with a cluster of countries resisting any firm commitments.

The G20 meeting in Naples discussed biodiversity and the natural environment on Thursday, while energy and climate change will be on Friday's agenda. Diplomats have struggled for days to find meaningful common ground on both topics.

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday to consider seriously Britain's proposals to change what he called the "unsustainable" way a Brexit deal is governing trade with Northern Ireland.

Since it completed its exit from the EU at the end of last year, Britain's ties with the bloc have reached new lows, with both sides accusing each other of acting in bad faith over an agreement for post-Brexit trade with Northern Ireland.

BERLIN, July 22 (Reuters) - Germany's Angela Merkel made clear on Thursday she would keep working on issues such as climate change till her last day as chancellor but, inscrutable as ever, gave little away about her plans once she leaves office after a September 26 election.

Merkel has led Germany for 16 years, steering Europe's biggest economy through a global financial crisis, the euro zone debt crisis, a migrant crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, but she is not running for a fifth term.

MOSCOW, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline will soon become operational despite Washington's attempt to politicize the project, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Thursday.

Zakharova made the remarks during her weekly briefing after the United States and Germany agreed on Wednesday on measures to reduce the risk that the Nord Stream 2 would pose to European energy security and Ukraine.

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Church bells rang out across Norway on Thursday, marking 10 years since the country’s worst ever peacetime slaughter as commemoration ceremonies took place throughout the day.

On July 22, 2011, right wing extremist Anders Breivik set off a bomb in the capital, Oslo, killing eight people, before heading to tiny Utoya island where he stalked and shot dead 69 mostly teen members of the Labor Party’s youth wing.

MOSCOW, July 21. /TASS/: The price of Brent oil declined by more than 7.5% and fell below $68 per barrel a day after the OPEC+ ministerial meeting, at which the participating countries agreed on new parameters for the deal, said analysts interviewed by TASS on Wednesday.

However, the drop in quotations is connected not so much with the decisions of OPEC+ as with the collapse of financial markets amid fears due to the spread of the Delta strain of coronavirus.

ZHUKOVSKY/Moscow Region/, July 21. /TASS/: Russia is poised to supply a batch of Sukhoi Su-35 multirole fighters to Indonesia despite the pressure being exerted on this Asian-Pacific country, a spokesperson for the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, Valeria Reshetnikova, told reporters at the MAKS-2021 air show on Wednesday.

ZHUKOVSKY /Moscow Region/, July 21. /TASS/: The development of the Tsirkon hypersonic missile on schedule, CEO of the Tactical Missiles Corporation Boris Obnosov told reporters at the MAKS-2021 international air show on Wednesday.

"The development of the Tsirkon is proceeding according to schedule," the chief executive said.

The Tsirkon missile is a breakthrough weapon, he said. "This is a very complex weapon. I personally attended several trials. An awesome effect," Obnosov said.