Europe

MADRID (AP) — A large wildfire in northeast Spain grew rapidly overnight and was burning out of control Sunday, forcing the evacuation of eight villages and 1,500 people in Zaragoza province, firefighters said.

The head of the local Aragon government, Javier Lamban, said Sunday that the situation was critical in the town of Añon de Moncayo and the priority for the 300 firefighters fighting the blaze was to protect human lives and villages.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces on Sunday fired rockets on the Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine, killing at least one person, and a Russian diplomat called on Ukraine to offer security assurances so that international inspectors could visit a nuclear power station that has come under fire.

The Mykolaiv region is just to the north of the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, which Ukrainian forces have vowed to retake. The Ukrainian emergency service said one person was killed in shelling early Sunday of the Mykolaiv region settlement of Bereznehuvate.

LONDON (AP) — It’s not just the economy. While inflation and recession fears weigh heavily on the minds of voters, another issue is popping up in political campaigns from the U.K. and Australia to the U.S. and beyond: the “China threat.”

The two finalists vying to become Britain’s next prime minister, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, clashed in a televised debate last month over who would be toughest on China.

MOSCOW, August 13. /TASS/: Russia has warned the US about the points of no return, after which a rupture of diplomatic relations is possible, Alexander Darchiev, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's North American Department, told TASS in an interview.

MOSCOW, August 13. /TASS/: Confirmed COVID-19 cases in Russia grew by 28,694 in the past day and 60 coronavirus patients died of the infection, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Saturday.

A day before, Russia reported 27,810 coronavirus cases and 57 fatalities, which totaled 18,852,976 and 383,071, respectively.

Coronavirus recoveries in Russia grew by 16,874 in the past 24 hours compared to 14,320 a day before, totaling 18,121,135, the latest figures suggest.

MOSCOW, August 13. /TASS/: The allied forces of the Donbass republics and the Russian army completely liberated the settlement of Peski in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Saturday.

"As a result of offensive operations by the allied forces, the settlement of Peski in the Donetsk People’s Republic has been completely liberated," the spokesman said.

MOSCOW, August 13. /TASS/: Moscow views the expulsion of a Russian diplomat from Montenegro as a new episode of the hybrid campaign unleashed by the West against Russia, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday.

GENEVA, Aug 13 (NNN-Xinhua) — A total of 168 aid workers have been attacked so far this year, leading to 44 fatalities, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told a press briefing that according to data from the NGO Humanitarian Outcomes, a partner of OCHA, more than 140 aid workers were killed in the line of duty last year, the highest number of fatalities since 2013.

Last year, there were also 203 aid workers injured and 117 kidnapped, Laerke said.

GENEVA, Aug 13 (NNN-Xinhua) — The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced new names for variants of the monkeypox virus that are currently in circulation. This is to avoid causing any cultural or social offense, the WHO explained in a statement.

A group of global experts convened by the WHO decided on the new names.

LONDON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is 22 percentage points ahead of her rival Rishi Sunak in the contest to become the country's next prime minister, a poll of Conservative Party members by Opinium Research showed on Saturday.

Among a sample of 450 party members who had decided how they would vote in the ongoing leadership election put Truss, who other polls have also shown to be the clear frontrunner, on 61%, with former finance minister Sunak on 39%, Opinium said.