Europe

GENEVA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday urged countries hit by coronavirus disease to "wake up" to the pandemic situation on the ground and to "take control" of the spread of the virus.

"People need to wake up. The data is not lying. The situation on the ground is not lying," Michael Ryan, WHO emergencies director, told reporters here.

BERLIN (AP) — German lawmakers have finalized the country’s long-awaited phase-out of coal as an energy source, backing a plan that environmental groups say isn’t ambitious enough and free marketeers criticize as a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Bills approved by both houses of parliament Friday envision shutting down the last coal-fired power plant by 2038 and spending some 40 billion euros ($45 billion) to help affected regions cope with the transition.

GENEVA, Jul 03 (APP): Pakistan has told the UN Human Rights Council that the plight of children in Indian occupied Kashmir, which is under a tight lockdown for the last 10 months, has further deteriorated, and called on India to end its atrocities against them.

“Militarily cooped up in their homes under the suffocating ‘double’ lockdown, over 1.5 million Kashmiri children have endured the worst form of violence which the contemporary world has yet to witness,” Ambassador Khalil Hashmi said.

SEVASTOPOL, July 3. /TASS/: The crew of the diesel-electric submarine Kolpino practiced delivering missile strikes with the Kalibr-PL precision system from the submerged position during drills in the Black Sea, the Fleet’s press office reported on Friday.

"In order to deliver a notional missile strike with the Kalibr-PL precision system from the submerged position, the crew carried out its urgent submergence and conducted missile firings against a naval target by electronic launches," the press office said in a statement.

MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/: Moscow has no plans to take into account other countries’ so-called concerns about constitutional amendments approved in Russia’s nationwide vote, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/: Construction of three more Container-3M missile defense early warning radars are underway in the Siberian, eastern, and the Kaliningrad directions, Russian Aerospace Forces Commander-in-Chief Sergei Surovikin said in an interview Friday.

"Currently, we have commissioned construction of three more such radar stations — the Siberian one, the eastern one and the Kaliningrad one — which would allow us to monitor airspace from all strategic aerospace directions," he said.

MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/: Volunteers that have been vaccinated against COVID-19 two weeks ago in Russia’s Burdenko military hospital have not developed any adverse symptoms, the Russian Defense Ministry informed reporters on Friday.

"Volunteers from the first group that received one out of two components of a vaccine on June 18 are feeling well, they have not complained about their health. In the past two weeks, no serious adverse symptoms have been detected," the ministry said.

MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an executive order, setting July 4 as the date when the Russian constitutional amendments come into effect, the Kremlin press service said Friday.

"The amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation will come into force on July 4, 2020," the order says.

PARIS, July 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — France has temporarily pulled out of a Nato security operation amid a major row with Turkey.

The defence ministry said France had suspended its role in Operation Sea Guardian, accusing Turkey of violating an arms embargo against Libya.

It comes weeks after Turkish ships allegedly targeted a French warship in the Mediterranean – something Ankara strongly denies.

The Nato allies are thought to support different sides in Libya’s civil war.

LONDON, July 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — British police said they had arrested a man over the toppling of a statue of a 17th century slave trader last month, an incident which sparked a major debate about Britain’s imperial past.

Anti-racism protesters demonstrating in the port city of Bristol in western England in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in the United States pulled down the statue of Edward Colston and threw it into the harbour.