Europe

BERLIN, July 14 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday that Germans must stand up to right-wing extremists and honor the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler 75 years ago.

On July 20, 1944, a bomb in a suitcase exploded in Hitler's office, but the Nazi leader survived the attack with only mild injuries. The plot's orchestrator, German army colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, and some 200 co-conspirators were executed.

LONDON, July 13 (Xinhua) -- UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said on Saturday that his country would facilitate the release of the Iranian oil tanker if given guarantees that the tanker "would not be going to Syria".

Hunt made the remarks on Twitter, saying he "just spoke to Iranian Foreign Minister (Mohammad Javad) Zarif. Constructive call. I reassured him our concern was destination not origin of the oil on Grace one & that UK would facilitate release if we received guarantees that it would not be going to Syria, following due process in Gib courts."

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian Proton-M rocket successfully delivered a cutting-edge space telescope into orbit Saturday after days of launch delays, Russia’s space agency said.

Roscosmos said the telescope, named Spektr-RG, was delivered into a parking orbit before a final burn Saturday that kicked the spacecraft out of Earth’s orbit and on to its final destination: the L2 Lagrange point.

MINSK, July 12. /TASS/: The resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Belarus is absurd both in its contents and the idea of its adoption, Directorate for Information and Digital Diplomacy of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said in a comment released on Friday.

"The resolution runs counter to the spirit of current relations between Belarus and the European Union. We are confident that the mandate of the special rapporteu’s on Belarus and the resolution should be abolished," the foreign ministry said.

MOSCOW, July 12. /TASS/: Russian presidential special envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin met on Friday with Syrian President Bashar Assad to discuss the situation in Syria’s Idlib and the establishment of the Constitutional Committee, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

MOSCOW, July 13. /TASS/: The launch of Spektr -RG space observatory on the Proton-M carrier rocket, which has been repeatedly postponed, will be held on July 13, the decision was made on Saturday morning by the State Commission, a source in the rocket and space industry told TASS, the information was later confirmed by Roscosmos.

13 July 2019; AFP: Britain said Friday it was sending a second warship to the Gulf and raising the alert level in the oil-rich region as tensions spike after Iranian gunboats threatened a UK supertanker.

The decision was disclosed as US President Donald Trump stepped up his war of words with the Islamic republic, which breached part of a nuclear accord already rejected by Washington.

"Iran better be careful," Trump told reporters outside the White House.

13 July 2019; DW: An Eritrean carpenter residing in Sudan was arrested in 2016 as part of a joint British-Italian operation. Three years later, a court in Sicily said he isn't the human trafficking kingpin they wanted.

An Italian court on Friday ruled that an Eritrean refugee arrested in Sudan three years ago was not a human trafficking kingpin.

13 July 2019; DW: The Pantheon in Paris houses the tombs of some of France's greatest citizens. The migrants occupied the building to call for the right to stay, and for a meeting with the prime minister.

Police escorted the protesters out of the ancient building in central Paris on Friday afternoon after hundreds of people without official documents, mainly from West Africa, made their case to stay in France, and to hold a meeting with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

VILNIUS, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Lithuania's new President Gitanas Nauseda started on Friday his term following his inauguration ceremony, pledging to tackle income and regional inequality, strengthen education and maintain the Euroatlantic integration.

Nauseda, 55, formerly an economist at one of the country's largest banks, started his swearing-in ceremony at the country's parliament where he made his first speech as the Lithuanian president.