Europe

PARIS/VIENNA, July 1 (Reuters) - Iran has been restricting U.N. nuclear inspectors' access to its main uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, citing security concerns after what it says was an attack on the site by Israel in April, diplomats say.

The standoff, which one official said has been going on for weeks, is in the course of being resolved, diplomats said, but it has also raised tensions with the West just as indirect talks between Iran and the United States on reviving the Iran nuclear deal have adjourned without a date set for their resumption.

ZAGREB, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Croatia on Wednesday reaffirmed its support for North Macedonia's European integration.

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic met with visiting North Macedonia President Stevo Pendarovski and they both stressed strong support for opening European Union (EU) accession negotiations with North Macedonia as soon as possible.

Milanovic said at a press conference that North Macedonia's accession to the EU will not be easy and that a lot of effort and friendly help is needed.

MOSCOW, June 30. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his annual Q&A session on Wednesday that he was deeply concerned over the military exploitation of Ukrainian territory by Western countries.

"I am concerned over another, more fundamental thing, namely that the military exploitation of Ukrainian territory is starting to unfold," Putin emphasized.

As the Russian leader stressed, the Ukrainian Constitution disallows the presence of foreign military bases there.

MOSCOW, June 30. /TASS/: Russia confirmed 21,042 COVID-19 cases over the past day, bringing the total caseload to 5,514,599, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Wednesday.

The number of cases increased by 0.38% in relative terms. 

Moscow confirmed 5,823 COVID-19 cases over the past day. Some 2,583 cases were recorded in the Moscow Region, 1,503 in St. Petersburg, 358 in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, 324 in the Bryansk Region and 321 in the Republic of Buryatia.

Currently, as many as 378,992 COVID-19 patients are undergoing treatment in Russia.

MOSCOW, June 30. /TASS/: A group of the Russian Pacific Fleet’s ships held missile and artillery firings in the Pacific, repelling a notional enemy’s air attack and striking a sea target in drills, the Fleet’s press office reported on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, June 30. /TASS/: Russia’s Progress MS-17 space freighter launched from the Baikonur spaceport will have a near-miss with a Falcon-9 rocket fragment and a Starlink satellite of Elon Musk’s SpaceX on July 2, the state space corporation Roscosmos reported on Wednesday.

ZURICH, June 30 (Reuters) - Switzerland has chosen Lockheed Martin's (LMT.N) F-35A Lightning II as its next-generation fighter plane, the government said on Wednesday, a move that will likely trigger another hotly-disputed referendum over the plan.

Neutral Switzerland will buy 36 F-35As after an evaluation found it had "the highest overall benefit at the lowest overall cost," the government said.

BELFAST, June 30 (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's High Court on Wednesday rejected a challenge by the region's largest pro-British parties to part of Britain's divorce deal with the European Union, saying the Northern Ireland Protocol was consistent with British and EU law.

The court said Britain's EU withdrawal agreement, which effectively left Northern Ireland in the bloc's trading orbit, overrode earlier precedents due to the sovereignty of the British parliament and its status as constitutional legislation.

LONDON, June 30 (Reuters) - British education minister Gavin Williamson on Wednesday said he expects to be able to end the restrictions and bubble system in England's schools when other freedoms are regained in the last step out of lockdown, scheduled for July 19.

The current system can result in entire classes of pupils being asked to self isolate if one of their classmates tests positive for COVID-19.

"What I want to see is these restrictions, including bubbles removed as quickly as possible, along with wider restrictions in society," Williamson told lawmakers.

LONDON, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The coal used to generate electricity in Britain will be phased out by 2024, a year earlier than originally planned, the British government announced Wednesday.

In 2012, coal accounted for 40 percent of the British power generation, dropping to only 1.8 percent in 2020, the government said in a release.

The move, announced by Energy and Climate Change Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan, means that within just 10 years, Britain will have reduced the national power grid's reliance on coal from previously around a third to zero.