Europe

MOSCOW, November 24. /TASS/: The Russian State Duma on Thursday adopted in the third and final reading a bill developing legislation on foreign agents. The draft law is aimed at countering foreign interference.

The document, among other things, equates information items produced by a foreign agent for minors to information which is harmful to children's health and development.

MOSCOW, November 24. /TASS/: Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar held discussions on the progress of the grain deal and the situation in northern Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

MOSCOW, November 24. /TASS/: Fifty Russian soldiers have returned from the Ukrainian captivity, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced on Thursday.

"On November 24, 50 Russian servicemen who faced a fatal danger in captivity have been returned from the territory controlled by the Kiev regime as a result of the negotiating process," the ministry said in a statement.

Military transport planes of the Russian Aerospace Forces will deliver all the released servicemen to Moscow for medical treatment and recovery at the Defense Ministry’s medical institutions, it said.

MOSCOW, November 24. /TASS/: The European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) has demonstrated that it is unwilling to impartially assess the human rights situation in Ukraine, Russia’s human rights commissioner, Tatyana Moskalkova, said after attending the General Assembly of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) in Brussels.

BERLIN, Nov 24 (NNN-XINHUA) – It was an unpleasant trip in complete silence for the German team, back to the team’s hotel in the north of Qatar.

Everyone of the 110 kilometres seemed endlessly long, as the 2014 world champions found themselves in a state of shock, after the 2-1 defeat against Japan in their World Cup opener.

It might be a curious side-effect that, two Japanese players employed by German first-tier clubs scored the winning goals: Ritsu Doan of Freiburg and Takuma Asano of Bochum.

Nov 24 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday discussed Western attempts to cap the price of Russian oil during a phone call with Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, the new Iraqi prime minister, the Kremlin said in a readout of the call.

It said Putin had told Sudani that a price cap would have serious consequences for the global energy market.

"Attempts by a number of Western countries to impose restrictions on the cost of crude oil from Russia were touched upon," the Kremlin's statement said.

HELSINKI, Nov 24 (Reuters) - The European Union is pressing ahead with a ninth sanctions package on Russia in response to Moscow's attack on Ukraine, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said during a visit to Finland on Thursday.

"We are working hard to hit Russia where it hurts to blunt even further its capacity to wage war on Ukraine and I can announce today that we are working full speed on a ninth sanctions package," von der Leyen told a news conference.

BERLIN, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had aimed to convene European talks with Vladimir Putin the year before his invasion of Ukraine but in the end did not see any possibility of influencing the Russian president at the end of her term.

Merkel told the Spiegel news magazine in an interview published on Thursday that she and French President Emmanuel Macron had planned to hold an independent talk format with Putin within the European Council in 2021, her last summer in office.

MOSCOW, Nov 24 (Reuters) - The Kremlin on Thursday denied that its attacks on Ukraine's electricity network were aimed at civilians, but said Kyiv could "end the suffering" of its population by meeting Russia's demands to resolve the conflict.

Repeated missile barrages against power infrastructure across Ukraine over the last few weeks have forced millions of people to go without light, water or heating for hours or days at a time, just as outdoor temperatures fall below freezing.

PRAGUE/WARSAW, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Eastern Europe's arms industry is churning out guns, artillery shells and other military supplies at a pace not seen since the Cold War as governments in the region lead efforts to aid Ukraine in its fight against Russia.

Allies have been supplying Kyiv with weapons and military equipment since Russia invaded its neighbour on Feb. 24, depleting their own inventories along the way.