Europe

MOSCOW, July 17. /TASS/: Militants have shelled six settlements in the Syrian provinces of Hama, Latakia and Aleppo in the past day, Major General Alexey Bakin, chief of the Russian Center for reconciliation of the conflicting sides in Syria, told reporters on Wednesday.

"Over the past day militants shelled Saraf, Qalaat Marza and Djai Bahsa in the Latakia province; Hamamiyat and Harab al-Hizatio in the Hama province, as well as Sabikiyah in the Aleppo province," Bakin said.

SEVASTOPOL, July 18. /TASS/: Su-27 and Su-30 fighter jets from Russia’s Southern Military District practiced missile and bombing strikes against a notional enemy’s command posts and military hardware in drills at the Chauda training range in Crimea, the press office of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet reported on Thursday.

KIEV, July 18. /TASS/: The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has protested against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decree easing citizenship rules for all residents of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

MOSCOW, July 18. /TASS/: Attempts to make European consumers buy American liquefied natural gas (LNG) run counter to the principles of market economy and democracy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Germany’s Rheinische Post newspaper.

18 July 2019; AFP: Three months after winning a landslide victory in Ukraine's presidential election, former comedian Volodymyr Zelensky is hoping to consolidate his success in parliamentary polls on Sunday.

Voter surveys show Zelensky's party Servant of the People -- named after a sitcom in which he starred as president -- is Ukraine's most popular political movement.

18 July 2019; AFP: Three months after a fire ravaged Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, a rare glimpse inside the burned masterpiece on Wednesday revealed it to be eerily empty and with rubble still littering the nave.

Journalists were on Wednesday given unprecedented access during a tour around the inside of the 850-year-old World Heritage landmark.

18 July 2019; DW: Erol Onderoglu, the national representative for Reporters Without Borders, was one of three facing 14 years in jail. 140 journalists are currently in prison in Turkey, despite international demands that they be set free.

The Turkish representative for advocacy group Reporters Without Borders has been acquitted in a national court, after facing charges of spreading terrorist propaganda.

18 July 2019; DW: For decades, Germany's Defense Ministry has been plagued by scandals, from far-right extremists in the ranks to broken military equipment. Can Merkel's heir apparent Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer improve its image?

LONDON, July 18 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister hopeful Boris Johnson has insisted that he would take Britain out of the European Union (EU) on the scheduled date of Oct. 31, with or without a deal.

He voiced this stance in his final Conservative Party leadership debate with Jeremy Hunt on Wednesday.

Questioned about messages from Brussels that the Brexit deal brokered by outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May is not up for negotiation, Johnson said: "Where's the will, there's a way."

ATHENS, July 17 (Xinhua) -- The 300 deputies of the 18th session of the Greek Parliament, elected from the July 7 general elections, was sworn in on Wednesday.

New Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis wished "strength to all" during the ceremony broadcast on national television ERT.