Europe

LONDON (AP) — The British government is being urged by its own climate advisers to deliver on its promises to deal with climate change or risk undermining a key environmental summit that it is hosting at the end of the year.

Among some 200 recommendations in a report published Thursday, the advisory Climate Change Committee said policies are urgently need to make homes more energy-efficient, accelerate the shift to electric cars and encourage people to eat less meat.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia will be ready to fire to hit to protect its borders, a senior diplomat warned Thursday in the wake of a Black Sea incident in which a British destroyer sailed near Crimea in an area that Russia claims as its territorial waters.

Russia said one of its warships fired warning shots and a warplane dropped bombs in the path of British destroyer Defender Wednesday to drive it away from the area near Sevastopol, but Britain denied that account and insisted its ship wasn’t fired upon.

MADRID (AP) — John McAfee, the creator of McAfee antivirus software, was found dead in his jail cell near Barcelona in an apparent suicide Wednesday, hours after a Spanish court approved his extradition to the United States to face tax charges punishable by decades in prison, authorities said.

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: Russia won’t face the shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

"We do not consider this (such a risk - TASS). We believe that this should not be and it won’t be," Peskov said in a comment on how the presidential administration assessed a potential risk of the shortage of COVID-19 vaccines in the country.

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: The threat posed by international terrorism remains, actions of the West often create a breeding ground for it, Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov told the Moscow Conference on International Security on Wednesday.

"The international terrorism threat persists. At the same time, the actions of the West aimed at imposing ‘democratic changes’ often lay down a breeding ground to foster terrorists," he said.

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: Washington is actively building up the Pacific segment of the US global missile shield and strengthening cooperation with Tokyo, Chief of the Russian General Staff’s Main Department Admiral Igor Kostyukov said at the Moscow Conference on International Security on Wednesday.

"Washington is actively building up the Pacific segment of the US global ballistic missile defense system," the Russian defense official said.

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: A Russian Su-30SM fighter was scrambled to intercept a US Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance plane over the Sea of Okhotsk near Russian borders, Russia’s National Defense Control Center reported on Wednesday.

On June 23, Russian radar stations detected an aerial target over the Sea of Okhotsk approaching Russia’s state border, the National Defense Control Center said in a statement.

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: Russia confirmed 17,594 COVID-19 cases over the past day, bringing the total caseload to 5,368,513, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Wednesday.

In relative terms, the growth rate reached 0.33%.

The Moscow Region recorded 2,323 coronavirus cases over the past day, a new high since the start of the pandemic. Some 1,092 COVID-19 cases were registered in St. Petersburg, 291 in the Nizhny Novgorod Region 255 in the Republic of Buryatia, 210 in the Republic of Crimea and 209 in the Voronezh Region.

BRUSSELS, June 23 (Reuters) - The European Union is considering 3.5 billion euros ($4.18 billion) for Turkey to continue hosting Syrian refugees until 2024, two diplomats said on Wednesday, part of a bigger regional refugee support plan to stop migrants reaching the bloc.

The total 5.77 billion euro package for Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, which goes to humanitarian projects and not governments, aims to prevent a new refugee influx into the EU and win time until the 10-year Syrian civil war eventually ends.

SANT JOAN DE VILATORRADA, Spain, June 23 (Reuters) - The nine Catalan separatist leaders who were convicted for their role in a failed 2017 bid for the region's independence from Spain walked out of prison on Wednesday after the central government granted them pardons.

Carme Forcadell, former speaker of the Catalan parliament, was first to leave the Barcelona city jail, followed by others released from the Lledoners prison near the regional capital, , Reuters footage showed.