Europe

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian passenger plane with 17 people on board went missing Friday during a flight in Siberia.

The regional branch of the Russian Emergencies Ministry said the An-28 plane disappeared in the Tomsk region in western Siberia.

The emergencies office said the plan carried 14 passengers, including four children, and three crew members.

A search effort involving several helicopters is under way, officials said.

The An-28 is a small short-range, Soviet-designed turboprop used by many small carriers across Russia and some other countries.

PARIS (AP) — The Eiffel Tower is reopening Friday for the first time in nine months even though the French government introduced new virus rules this week aimed at taming the fast-spreading delta variant.

The “Iron Lady” of Paris was ordered shut in October as France battled its second virus surge of the pandemic. The tower remained shut for renovations even after most of France’s major tourist draws reopened last month.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The left-leaning government of Greenland has decided to suspend all oil exploration off the world’s largest island, calling it is “a natural step” because the Arctic government “takes the climate crisis seriously.”

No oil has been found yet around Greenland, but officials there had seen potentially vast reserves as a way to help Greenlanders realize their long-held dream of independence from Denmark by cutting the annual subsidy of 3.4 billion kroner ($540 million) the Danish territory receives.

BERLIN (AP) — At least 110 people have died in devastating floods across parts of western Germany and Belgium, officials said Friday, as rescue operations and the search for hundreds still unaccounted for continued.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was “stunned” by the devastation caused by the flooding and pledged support to the families of those killed and to cities and towns facing significant damage.

MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/: Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport is working as usual despite the bad weather conditions, head of the airport’s public relations department Anna Zakharenkova told TASS. The same situation is reported at Domodedovo Airport.

Earlier, a source in the emergency services told TASS that dozens of streets and part of the territory of Sheremetyevo Airport were flooded due to heavy rains in Moscow.

MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/: Customers are likely to place hundreds of orders for Russia’s latest Su-57 fifth-generation fighter, CEO of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) Yuri Slyusar said at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday. 

"We hope that this aircraft will be chosen as the platform and the basic plane for coping with a broad range of tasks, and orders for these fighters will run into the hundreds," the chief executive said.

This year, work will begin to develop several modifications of the aircraft, he said.

MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/: Russia’s Sputnik Light single-component coronavirus vaccine has been registered in Kazakhstan, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said on Thursday.

"RDIF announces registration of the Russian Sputnik Light single-component vaccine against coronavirus by the Ministry of Healthcare of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The single-component Sputnik Light vaccine will reduce population’s vaccination timeline and speed up herd immunity buildup," the Fund says.

MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi have discussed information security, the situation in Central Asia and the Iran nuclear deal at a meeting on the sidelines of the high-level international conference "Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity. Challenges and Opportunities" in Tashkent.

MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss overcoming global problems related to the coronavirus pandemic with the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) in a videoconference on Friday, the Kremlin press service reported on Thursday.

"The issues on overcoming global problems in the spheres of healthcare and the economy caused by the coronavirus infection faced by the countries of the Asian-Pacific region will be discussed," the statement said.

GENEVA, July 15 (NNN-TASS) — The world is currently in the early stages of a third wave, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. 

  “We are now in the early stages of a third wave,” he said in his opening remarks at the 8th meeting of the IHR Emergency Committee on COVID-19.
 
  The WHO head said that in the past week cases of COVID-19 were increasing globally, and deaths have started to go up again. Moreover, “deaths are increasing again” after 10 weeks of declines, he added.