Europe

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s foreign minister on Thursday accused the West of becoming directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine by supplying it with weapons and training its soldiers.

Sergey Lavrov also said that Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities and other key infrastructure that have left millions without power, heating and water were intended to weaken Ukraine’s military potential and derail the shipments of Western weapons.

LODZ, Poland (AP) — Europe’s largest security organization, one founded to maintain peace and stability on the continent, opened a meeting Thursday with strong denunciations of Russia’s war against Ukraine, a conflict that is among the greatest challenges the body has faced in its nearly half-century of existence.

30 Nov 2022; MEMO: The Muslim population of England and Wales has increased by 44 per cent over the past decade, according to newly released data from the Census 2021.

The figures published by the Office of for National Statistics (ONS) show that the number of people identifying as Muslim in England and Wales was 6.5 per cent or 3.9 million people compared to 4.9 per cent (2.7 million people) in 2011.

BUCHAREST (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday condemned Russia’s weeks-long assault on Ukraine’s power grid and other infrastructure as an attempt to “freeze and starve” its people, with the war-torn country’s foreign minister renewing a call for advanced missile systems.

Blinken spoke after a meeting with his NATO counterparts in Bucharest, Romania devoted in part to coordinating aid to keep the lights — and furnaces — on in Ukraine, where Russian strikes have damaged much of the country’s electrical infrastructure.

MADRID (AP) — Spanish police are investigating a suspect letter bomb sent to an air base outside Madrid early Thursday, a day after a letter bomb exploded at the Ukrainian Embassy injuring an employee, the interior and defense ministries said.

Government officials said another explosive package was detected Wednesday evening at an arms factory in the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza. The factory makes grenade launchers which Spain has sent to Ukraine. Police carried out a controlled explosion of the parcel.

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/: The Federation Council of Russia [the upper house of the Russian legislative assembly - TASS] has approved the federal budget law for 2023 and the planned period of 2024-2025 at its meeting this Wednesday.

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin considers the decrease in the level of poverty in the country important in the current conditions.

"The level of poverty decreased to 10.5% by the end of the third quarter," he said at a meeting with government members on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/: Italy’s Luciano Rossi has defeated Russian oligarch Vladimir Lisin at elections for the president of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF), Inside the Games reported on Wednesday.

The ISSF General Assembly held the vote in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt on Wednesday. Lisin received 127 votes but was beaten out by Rossi, who garnered 136.

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/: The Russian Federation Council unanimously approved a law banning propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships, pedophilia and information capable of triggering a desire to change sex at a plenary session on Wednesday. The bill was backed by 153 senators.

LONDON, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The number of people in Europe with undiagnosed HIV has risen as testing rates fell during the COVID-19 pandemic, threatening a global goal of ending the disease by 2030, a report said.

The joint World Health Organization (WHO) and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) report said that in 2021 a quarter fewer HIV diagnoses were recorded compared to pre-pandemic levels in the WHO's European region.

This region includes Russia and Ukraine, which have the area's highest rates of HIV infection.