Europe

2 June 2019; DW: British authorities intercepted eight vessels carrying some 74 migrants, including minors, across the English Channel on Saturday. French authorities reportedly caught two additional boats.

Coastguard officials said the boats were found along Britain's southeast coast, stretching from the port of Dover to Winchelsea Beach near Hastings, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) away.

MOSCOW, June 1. /TASS/: The number of those injured in the blasts, which rocked the Kristall explosives plant in the city of Dzerzhinsk in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region on Saturday, has increased to 82, while 15 of them are in hospitals, the regional health ministry told TASS.

Earlier, 79 people were reported injured.

MOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/: Russia’s newly appointed Ambassador to Belarus Dmitry Mezentsev does not see any conflict in the incident with contaminated oil in the Druzhba oil pipeline, as the countries confirmed their readiness to get to the bottom of that, the ambassador said in an interview with TASS.

"I cannot see any conflict ‘around the oil pipeline,’ as the sides have confirmed their readiness to get to the bottom of the incident, to wait for results of the commission’s work and to do their utmost so that nothing like that will ever happen in the future," Mezentsev said.

MOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/: The people injured in explosions at the Kristall explosives factory in the town of Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod, will receive compensations of 100,000 rubles ($1,530) from the regional budget and 50,000 rubles ($765) from the town budget each, Nizhny Novgorod Region Governor Gleb Nikitin’s press service reported, citing the governor.

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.3 struck rural areas in Albania early Saturday southeast of Tirana, the capital, injuring four people and damaging about 100 houses, authorities said.

The Defense Ministry reported that four people were injured from falling walls at their homes and about 100 houses, many uninhabited, were damaged. The injured were sent to a local hospital.

CATANIA, Sicily (AP) — Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano, is spewing ash and lava once again, but officials say the activity is taking place at its summit and does not pose a risk to people.

Etna began a new phase of eruptions on Thursday as new cracks in the volcano opened up, sending lava down its flank.

The volcano previously erupted in December and sparked minor earthquakes that caused extensive damage to buildings in the vicinity.

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — A Hungarian judge on Saturday ordered the formal arrest of a captain whose Viking river cruise ship collided with a sightseeing boat on the Danube River, sinking the tourist boat and leaving seven South Koreans dead and 21 other people missing.

Authorities said water levels in Budapest are expected to fall quickly in the coming days, helping efforts to salvage the wreckage that may still contain victims’ bodies.

1 June 2019; AFP: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will take part Saturday in a secretive meeting in Switzerland of global power brokers discreetly discussing issues like Brexit and the future of capitalism.

The State Department confirmed Saturday that Pompeo, who is on a four-nation tour of Europe, would take part in the four-day Bilderberg meeting, which kicked off on Thursday in the picturesque Swiss town of Montreux.

1 June 2019; DW: The pope called on Romanians to stand together and reject hate at the start of his first trip to the Orthodox majority country. Tensions persist over communist-era confiscations of Catholic properties.

Pope Francis began his three-day visit to Romania on Friday with an appeal for unity in the face of corruption and poverty.

1 June 2019; DW: Some 2,000 protesters are expected to take part in an anti-Israel rally in Germany's capital, Berlin, on Saturday, amid fears that anti-Semitism is on the rise in the country.

The Quds Day (Jerusalem Day) march, whose official title is "For a just peace in Palestine," is to take place despite several calls to have it banned, notably by the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster.