Europe

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s Supreme Court will hear a third and final day of legal arguments on Thursday over whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson acted unlawfully when he suspended parliament in the run-up to Brexit.

If Johnson loses, he may be compelled to recall parliament earlier than scheduled, giving additional time for legislators to scrutinize and oppose his plans to lead Britain out of the European Union, with or without a divorce deal, on Oct. 31.

ROME, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Rome and Paris showed a willingness to move in a coordinated way after Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and French President Emmanuel Macron held talks late Wednesday on such key issues as immigration and instability in Libya.

Macron was the first European leader to pay a visit to Rome after the formation of Conte's new coalition government of the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party.

Minsk, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has registered a sharp increase of ceasefire violations in Donbas in eastern Ukraine, OSCE special envoy Martin Sajdik said Wednesday.

Sajdik made the remarks during a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on the peaceful settlement of the Donbas situation.

The current ceasefire agreed by the TCG on July 21 is the most sustainable one since the conflict began, he said.

MOSCOW, September 18. /TASS/: The main phase of the Russian-Belarussian exercise Union Shield 2019 has begun at the Mulino proving ground in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, as follows from a news release issued by the Western Military District.

The participating troops will practice cooperation in repelling superior enemy forces and mobile defense.

"Russian forces will carry out a counter-attack," the news release reads.

MOSCOW, September 18. /TASS/: Washington’s destructive actions are impeding efforts to dismantle the Rukban refugee camp in Syria, head of Russia’s National Defense Management Center Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev said at a joint meeting of the Russian and Syrian coordination centers for the return of refugees on Wednesday.

Moreover, the operation to dismantle the camp is on the verge of collapse because of provocations staged by US-controlled militants, Mikhail Mizintsev claimed.

KIEV, September 18. /TASS/: Commander of the so-called Joint Forces Operation (JFO) in Donbass Vladimir Kravchenko stated that the Ukrainian side started preparations for the withdrawal of the army along the entire contact line in the east of the country. According to the JFO headquarters, he made this statement on Wednesday at a meeting with Permanent Representative of the United Nations Development Program in Ukraine Osnat Lubrani in Kiev.

MOSCOW, September 18. /TASS/: Situation in Syria will stabilize only after full withdrawal of US troops and handover of occupied territories to the Syrian government, head of Russia’s National Defense Management Center Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev said.

MOSCOW, September 18. /TASS/: Russian border guards have detained over 160 North Korean crewmembers from two poaching vessels in the Sea of Japan, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Public Relations Center told TASS on Wednesday. Some of the detained are injured.

"As a result of coordinated action by the coast guard, aviation and special purpose units, the border guards have detained 2 schooners, 11 motorboats, and 161 citizens of the DPRK. Several foreigners are injured, they have been provided with the required medical aid," the center informed.

PARIS (Reuters) - France will not rush into commenting on who was behind an attack on Saudi oil installations, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

Asked in an online briefing whether Paris considered the Saudi and US analysis that Iran was behind the attack to be credible, the spokeswoman responded: “We share the desire to carefully establish the facts before making any reaction.”

Earlier in the day, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said Paris would send experts to Saudi Arabia to help with investigations into the attack.

GENEVA, Sept 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A panel of UN experts warns the failure of South Sudan’s warring factions to implement last year’s peace accord risks plunging the country into full-scale war once again.

The report by the three-member Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan shows no improvements since South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar signed a peace accord aimed at ending the country’s six-year civil war.