Europe

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is closely watching rises in coronavirus cases in other European destinations such as France and Germany after slapping a 14-day quarantine on travellers from Spain at the height of the summer vacation season.

The imposition of a British quarantine on Spain is one of the starkest indications to date that Europe could face a second wave of economic turmoil as governments scramble to head off a rise in cases from the Mediterranean to the North Sea.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Monday it had thwarted a planned militant attack in Moscow and shot dead an unnamed man it said was plotting a mass shooting in a crowded public place.

State TV channel Rossiya 24 showed a picture of the man, who the FSB said was from a Central Asian country, lying face down dead on the ground with a Kalashnikov assault rifle he had apparently been using nearby.

The FSB said he had opened fire on them when they had tried to arrest him on the outskirts of Moscow and that they had shot him dead.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain’s foreign minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya said on Monday it was important that Turkey’s Hagia Sophia remains part of humanity’s shared global heritage, after it was reconverted into a mosque from a museum last week.

“For us it is important that the spirit of this great monument of Hagia Sophia is maintained,” she said at a joint news conference with her Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara.

KIEV, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed the conflict resolution in East Ukraine ahead of the Monday ceasefire during a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Ukrainian president's press service reported on Sunday.

The leaders discussed the implementation of the Normandy Four summit agreements reached in Paris on Dec. 9, 2019.

HELSINKI, July 27 (Xinhua) -- U.S. ambassador to Iceland Jeffrey Ross Gunter has provoked anger and criticism in Iceland after he retweeted a post from U.S. President Donald Trump calling COVID-19 "the Invisible China Virus."

"We are United to defeat the Invisible China Virus," wrote Gunter last week on his official ambassadorial Twitter account, followed by the flag emojis of the United States and Iceland displayed side by side.

Gunter's retweet came after Trump tweeted on July 20, using "the Invisible China Virus" to refer to COVID-19.

TASS, July 26: An earthquake of 6.3 magnitudes was registered in the region of the South Sandwich Islands located in the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday, the US Geological Survey reported.

The epicenter, with a depth of 10.0 kilometers, was at 2,561 kilometers to the east of the Argentine town of Ushuaia, according to the report.

LUGANSK, July 26. /TASS/: Ukraine’s Armed Forces have shelled the settlement of Zolotoye-5 in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), damaging a house, an electrical substation and a power transmission line, the LPR military spokesman said on Saturday.

According to Yakov Osadchy, the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired ten mortars of 120mm into the settlement, damaging the roof of a house. Moreover, the local power substation was hit along with the power line, which left 86 households in Zolotoye-5 without electricity.

GROZNY, July 24. /TASS/: Head of Russia’s Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov has banned US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from entering the region, he announced at a meeting in Grozny on Friday.

On July 20, the US State Department imposed visa sanctions against Kadyrov, his wife, and daughters.

MOSCOW, July 26. /TASS/: The US authorities have intensified pressure on European contractors of construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline recently, threating with "far-reaching" consequences if they continue cooperating with the project, the German Die Welt paper wrote on Saturday with reference to sources.

LONDON, July 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) – British newspaper, The Independent, denounced the attack or arrest of journalists in the United States, while covering the recent demonstrations.

According to a report by the British newspaper on its website, a mounting crackdown on reporters by authorities has been seen in recent weeks, as the Trump administration deployed federal agents to several cities, where demonstrators are calling for racial justice.