Europe

TOKYO, May 31. /TASS/: Moscow is ready to facilitate a non-aggression pact between Iran and other Persian Gulf states, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters on Friday.

"I think, Tehran’s initiative on signing a non-aggression pact is a step in [the right] direction. I know that not everyone, but a number of member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council are willing to consider the initiative. We will be ready to facilitate this process," Lavrov pointed out.

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian police detained the captain of a cruise ship that collided with and sank a sightseeing boat packed with South Korean tourists, as rescue crews geared up to raise the vessel from the bottom of the Danube River in the heart of Budapest while scouring the waters for 21 people still missing.

Seven people are confirmed dead and seven have been rescued, all of them South Koreans, Hungarian officials said. Hungary’s state TV reported that all those rescued have been released from the hospital except one who is being treated for broken ribs.

WikiLeaks founder was arrested on 11 Apr 2019 at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was granted refuge since 2012. He has been in Belmarsh prison serving 50 weeks skipping bail. The UN working group on arbitrary detention said it was a “disproportionate sentence” for what it described as a “minor violation”.

30 May 2019; DW: Judges in the Netherlands said the biker gang was led by "a culture of violence" and represented a danger to the public. It is the third biker gang to be banned in the country since 2017.

A court in the Dutch city of Utrecht has banned the international biker club Hells Angels and ordered all its Dutch chapters to close. Authorities are pursuing a clampdown on what are called outlaw motorcycle gangs.

30 May 2019; DW: A second round of talks in Norway between representatives of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido aimed at resolving the nation's political crisis have ended "without agreement," Guaido's office has announced.

30 May 2019; DW: A lawyer for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says that his client was too ill to appear in court via video link. This comes as June 12 is set as the next date in a hearing on his potential extradition to the US.

LONDON, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Boris Johnson, front-runner in the race to replace Theresa May as Britain's next prime minister, heard Wednesday he is to face a court hearing on claims he lied during the campaign in the run up to the 2016 Brexit referendum.

The papers presented to the court in London claim that Johnson repeatedly lied and misled the British public as to the cost of EU membership, expressly stating, endorsing or inferring that it was 350 million British pounds (441.9 million U.S. dollars) a week.

VIENNA, May 29. /TASS/: Russia is observing the moratorium on nuclear tests, Russia's Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said on Wednesday.

Ulyanov was commenting on the remarks made earlier by director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley. Ashley said that "the United States believes that Russia probably is not adhering to its nuclear testing moratorium in a manner consistent with the 'zero-yield' standard" outlined in the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

MOSCOW, May 29. /TASS/: The union treaty between Russia and Belarus is needed to boost the economies and social sectors in both countries,, Russia’s Ambassador to Belarus Dmitry Mezentsev said in a televised interview with Russia’s Rossiya-24 TV channel on Wednesday.

"People do need allied relations between Russia and Belarus, our economies do need them. They are needed to achieve growth and enrichment in the social sector. Last but not least, millions of citizens of Belarus and of the Russian Federation need them," he said.

MOSCOW, May 30. /TASS/: Russia will hold another round of talks with Iran on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily.

"This whole situation, along with concrete spheres of joint work between us, Iranians and other parties to the JCPOA, were in focus of our discussions in Tehran. We agreed that the next round of contacts will take place in the near future," Ryabkov said.