Europe

KIEV, July 13 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian-British military exercises Cossack Mace 2021 started on Monday in southern Ukraine and will run on July 12-24, the Ukrainian military said.

The exercises will take place in Nikolaev region involving about 2,000 servicemen and more than 300 combat vehicles from Ukraine, Britain, the United States, Canada and Sweden, the press service of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Monday.

They are held to improve the coordination of the military units of partner states.

GENEVA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), on Monday warned of the "devastating outbreaks" caused by the Delta variant of COVID-19, saying that the new strain of the virus was infecting people "at a scorching pace."

"Last week marked the fourth consecutive week of increasing cases of COVID-19 globally," Tedros said at a virtual press conference from Geneva, adding that "after ten weeks of declines, deaths are increasing again."

ROME, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The year 2020 saw a dramatic worsening of world hunger, which affected an estimated 720 million to 811 million people, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a statement on Monday.

The warning came with the launch of "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021" (SOFI) at the FAO headquarters in the Italian capital.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s sovereign fund on Tuesday announced a deal with a top Indian vaccine manufacturer to produce the Russia-designed Sputnik V vaccine.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund, or RDIF, said its deal with the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume, envisages annual production of more than 300 million doses of the vaccine in India starting in September.

PARIS (AP) — France’s competition regulator announced Tuesday that it has fined Google 500 million euros ($592 million) over a dispute with French publishers who want the company to pay for the use of their news.

The agency threatened fines of another 900,000 euros (around $1 million) per day if Google doesn’t produce proposals within two months on how it will compensate news producers.

LONDON (AP) — After Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor and his wife received two doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine in Nigeria, they assumed they would be free to travel this summer to a European destination of their choice. They were wrong.

The couple — and millions of other people who have been vaccinated through a U.N.-backed effort — could find themselves barred from entering many European and other countries because those nations don’t recognize the Indian-made version of the vaccine for travel.

12 July 2021; MEMO: The size of England's growing problem with racism came to light once again following its defeat against Italy in the finals of the Euro 2020. Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, three of the country's promising players of black heritage, all missed from the penalty spot last night, triggering a torrent of racial abuse.

MOSCOW, July 12. /TASS/: A US embassy employee stole a railroad sign in Russia’s Tver Region in spring 2021, endangering the lives of train passengers, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova disclosed in her Telegram channel Monday.

"What is not funny is the danger that the US citizen put the lives and health of train passengers in. The Ostashkov hub is a rather busy part of the railroad. A railroad is a high danger area. If the missing sign was not discovered promptly, a tragedy could have happened," she said.

MOSCOW, July 12. /TASS/: Sudan is about to ratify the agreement with Russia on the establishment of a Russian Navy base on its territory, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after the talks with his Sudanese counterpart Mariam al-Mahdi Monday.

MOSCOW, July 12. /TASS/: Foreign Minister of Belarus Vladimir Makei has stated that the Belarusian authorities see good prospects for further integration with Russia, their main ally.