Europe

ZAGREB, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Kuna, the official currency of Croatia since 1994, ceased circulation on Sunday as euro became the sole legal tender in the country.

Croatia joined the eurozone on the New Year's Day and in order to help residents adapt to the use of euro, the government introduced a two-week period of dual circulation of both currencies from Jan. 1 to midnight of Jan. 14 when kuna ceased circulation.

A drive-by shooting in central London wounded two children and four women, police said Sunday.

The Metropolitan Police said officers were called Saturday afternoon to a church in the Euston area where a private memorial service was taking place. Police believe gunmen fired shotgun pellets from a moving car outside the church.

“People came here to attend a funeral, to be with friends and loved ones and mourn together. Instead, they were the victims of a senseless act of violence,” police superintendent Jack Rowlands said.

DNIPRO, Ukraine (AP) — The death toll from a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro rose to 25 Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported as rescue workers scrambled to pull survivors from the rubble.

Emergency crews worked through the frigid night at the wrecked multi-story residential building, the site of the worst casualties from a widespread Russian barrage Saturday.

CHERNIHIV, Ukraine (AP) — In a Ukrainian hospital ward for wounded soldiers, where daylight barely penetrates, a father talks to his injured son for hours. Serhii Shumei, 64, never scolded Vitalii for choosing to go to war. Even now, despite the damage done to his son’s brain by an exploding artillery shell, Serhii feels pride, not pity.

“I’ve been constantly with him in the last five months, beside him, beside him, beside him,” says Serhii, a retired former soldier himself. “I’m not going anywhere. … except for a smoke.”

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/: Russian forces wiped out three D-20 howitzers in the Kharkov and the Donetsk People’s Republic in the past day during the counter-battery warfare, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Saturday.

"In the counter-battery warfare, three D-20 howitzers were destroyed near Scherbakovka in the Kharkov Region, as well as near Orlovka and Dyleevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic," the spokesman said.

KIEV, January 14. /TASS/: An explosion hit Kiev on Saturday afternoon, the Ukrainian publication Strana reported.

In addition, Alexey Kuleba, chief of the Kiev regional military administration, said that the air defense weapons had been used in the region.

"The Kiev region. The air defenses are working," he wrote on his Telegram channel.

Air raid alerts are in effect throughout the country.

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/: UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Chief of the General Staff Patrick Sanders have been included in Russia’s reciprocal sanctions list of 36 people, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in her commentary Saturday.

GENEVA, Jan 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United Nations on Friday urged all charges to be dropped in a long-delayed Greek trial of 24 migrant rescue workers accused of espionage, including prominent Syrian swimmer Sarah Mardini.

“Trials like these are deeply concerning because they criminalise life-saving work and set a dangerous precedent,” UN rights office spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters.

PARIS, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The execution of British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari is a heinous and barbaric act, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday.

Macron said he stood in solidarity with Britain which has condemned the execution, which defied British and U.S. calls for the 61-year-old Akbari's release after he was handed a death sentence on charges of spying for Britain.

In an audio recording purportedly from Akbari and broadcast by BBC Persian on Wednesday, he said he had confessed to crimes he had not committed after extensive torture.

Jan 14 (Reuters) - Russia's space agency Roscosmos announced new contingency plans on Saturday for the three crew of a damaged capsule docked to the International Space Station, saying the U.S. member of the trio would return to Earth in a separate SpaceX vessel if they needed to evacuate in the next few weeks.

The Soyuz MS-22 capsule, which serves as a lifeboat for the crew, sprang a coolant leak last month after it was struck by a micrometeoroid - a small particle of space rock - which made a tiny puncture and caused the temperature inside to rise.