Europe

MOSCOW, November 19. /TASS/: The ideas that EU top diplomat Josep Borrell disseminates among member states of the European Union show no sign of the bloc’s strategic vision on the Russian track and provoke a new prolonged split in Europe, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a commentary on Saturday.

MOSCOW, November 19. /TASS/: Warsaw’s decision to deny Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov his participation in a meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in the Polish city of Lodz on December 1-2 is unprecedented and provocative and incompatible with the status of the organization’s chair, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

MOSCOW, November 19. /TASS/: The West does not want to rupture relations with Russia completely, which is fraught with World War III, so they prod Kiev into holding talks with Moscow, but Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky does not want them in order not to acknowledge the fact of Ukraine’s break-up, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel on Saturday.

VIENNA, Nov 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The UN nuclear watchdog’s board of governors passed a resolution on Thursday expressing “grave concern” that Russia had not heeded calls to cease actions against nuclear facilities in war-torn Ukraine.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation board of governors urged Moscow “to abandon its baseless claims of ownership of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant”.

LISBON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Global police agency Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for Angolan billionaire and daughter of the country's former president Isabel dos Santos, Portugal's Lusa news agency reported on Friday.

According to Lusa, citing an official document, the INTERPOL warrant was issued after Angola's public prosecutors requested the agency to "locate, arrest" and extradite dos Santos.

INTERPOL and the public prosecutors did not immediately reply to Reuters' requests for comment.

VLADIVOSTOK, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- A gas explosion in a residential building has killed seven, including three children, and injured nine others in the Tymovskoye village of Russia's far eastern Sakhalin region on early Saturday.

Valery Limarenko, governor of the Sakhalin Region, said the rescuers are still searching for another three people.

The local Tymovskoye government said on social media that improper storage and use of household natural gas tanks caused the explosion.

SOFIA, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Bulgarian authorities have detained five suspects over connection with the deadly bomb attack in Istanbul, the country's prosecution authority said Saturday.

The five detainees were involved in logistics operations after the bomb attack, Siyka Mileva, spokesperson for Bulgaria's prosecutor's office, told local media.

The arrest was based on a tip-off from Türkiye's law enforcement authorities, Mileva said.

Local television channels reported that three of those arrested were of Moldovan origin and one of Arab origin.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A funeral was held Saturday for one of two Polish men who died in a missile explosion near the border with Ukraine, deaths that Western officials said appeared to have been caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile that went astray.

White roses were placed on the wooden casket of Boguslaw Wos. A family member carried a black-and-white photo of him, while another man carried a crucifix bearing his name. Polish state news agency PAP described Wos as a 62-year-old warehouse manager.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised 125 anti-aircraft guns and other air-defense technology as he made an unannounced visit Saturday — his first — to Ukraine’s snow-blanketed war-time capital for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The air-defense package, which Britain valued at 50 million pounds ($60 million), comes as Russia has been pounding Ukraine’s power grid and other key infrastructure from the air, causing widespread blackouts for millions of Ukrainians amid frigid weather.

KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — A week since the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson was liberated, residents can’t escape reminders of the terrifying eight months they spent under Russian occupation.

People are missing. There are mines everywhere, closed shops and restaurants, a scarcity of electricity and water, and explosions day and night as Russian and Ukrainian forces battle just across the Dnieper River.

Despite the hardships, residents are expressing a mix of relief, optimism, and even joy — not least because of their regained freedom to express themselves at all.