Europe

MOSCOW, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Russian Rocket and Space Corporation Energia and U.S. space tourism company Space Adventures have signed a contract for a short-term expedition for two space tourists aboard the Russian Soyuz MS spacecraft to the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) in 2023, Energia said in a statement on Thursday.

During the expedition, one of the tourists is scheduled to make a joint spacewalk with a professional Russian cosmonaut, the statement said.

MOSCOW, June 25. /TASS/: Deputy Chairperson of the Russian Central Election Commission Nikolai Bulayev has revealed that more than 96,000 local election commissions have started conducting the nationwide constitutional amendment vote across the country, no failures in their operation have been detected.

MOSCOW, June 25. /TASS/: Russia is not going to try to preserve the Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START treaty) at any cost, because Moscow needs it as much as Washington does, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said during an online session of the Primakov Readings forum entitled The US in the Whirlpool of Crises: Strategic Consequences.

MOSCOW, June 25. /TASS/: Presidents of Russia and France, Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron, will discuss relations of Moscow and Paris, as well as various crisis situations at the video conference scheduled for Friday.

"The video conference of President Putin and the President of France is scheduled for Friday, they will talk privately," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. "We expect the very beginning of the conference to be open to the mass media, we will publish the footage," the spokesman said.

KHELSINKI, June 25. /TASS/: There is no need to perform a rescue operation for the Kokshaysk fishing trawler grounded near Norwegian shores, the Russian Consulate General in Kirkenes told TASS on Thursday.

The trawler with 35 persons on board ran aground near Arnoya Island in Norway, the Nordlys newspaper reported earlier on Thursday.

MOSCOW, June 25. /TASS/: The adoption of constitutional amendments is aimed at confirming Russia’s social guarantees and sovereignty, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.

MOSCOW, June 25. /TASS/: Russian presidential spokesman, Dmitry Peskov has denied Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s claims Russia is allegedly involved in meddling in elections in his country.

"There can be only an unequivocal answer Russia has never intervened, does not intervene and will not ever intervene in any country’s electoral processes, let alone electoral processes in our ally Belarus," Peskov said.

MOSCOW, June 25. /TASS/: The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) is considering the possibility of investing in several more Favipiravir-based drugs, Chief Executive Officer Kirill Dmitriev said on Thursday.

"Two more companies are finalizing clinical trials of Favipiravir-based drugs in Russia — our portfolio company R-Pharm and Promomed company, which will virtually produce Favipiravir-based drugs. We support those companies and plan to invest in production of those drugs," he said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil slipped below $40 a barrel on Thursday after a more than 5% fall the previous session, as record-high U.S. crude inventories and a resurgence in coronavirus cases cast doubt on a recovery in fuel demand.

U.S. crude stocks rose 1.4 million barrels, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. [EIA/S] This hit crude prices, although other details the EIA reported such as a fall in gasoline stocks as demand rose, lent limited support.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe is expected to put his name forward later on Thursday to join Spain’s economy minister Nadia Calvino in the race to head the Eurogroup of 19 euro zone finance ministers, a government source told Reuters.

Proposals for the influential post must be submitted by the end of Thursday, a day before members of Donohoe’s Fine Gael and two other Irish parties vote on a deal struck last week to elect a new government following an inconclusive February election.