Europe

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/: Germany’s OBI signed an agreement with a group of Russian investors on sale of the six companies owning the Russian network of OBI stores, Vedomosti reported Saturday citing two sources close to the deal.

According to the report, 40% of shared of these companies will be obtained by the Max group of investment and construction companies, while 60% will be bought by businessman Joseph Liokumovich. Later, Max may sell some of the shared to "third parties," the newspaper says.

July 29 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Washington was not living up to promises regarding the exemption from sanctions for the supply of food from Russia, Moscow said.

A Russian foreign ministry read-out of the call also cited Lavrov as telling Blinken that Russia would achieve all the goals of its "special military operation" in Ukraine and said western arms supplies would only drag out the conflict.

ZURICH, July 30 (Reuters) - The head of the Swiss agency that implements economic sanctions expects the neutral country to adopt any punitive measures the European Union launches against China if it invades Taiwan, she said in a newspaper interview.

China has been stepping up military activity around Taiwan seeking to pressure the democratically elected government there to accept Chinese sovereignty. Taiwan's government says only the island's 23 million people can decide their future, and while it wants peace, it will defend itself if attacked. 

KYIV, July 30 (Reuters) - The Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had killed scores of Russian soldiers in fighting in the south, including the Kherson region that is the focus of Kyiv's counter-offensive in that part of the country and a key link in Moscow's supply lines.

Rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, the military's southern command said, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and the east.

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spain reported Saturday a second death in as many days from monkeypox. These are believed to be the first confirmed fatalities from the disease in Europe since its recent spread beyond Africa.

The ministry based in Madrid said both fatalities were young men. It reported its first death on Friday, the same day that Brazil also reported its first death from monkeypox.

LONDON (AP) — Moves by rich countries to buy large quantities of monkeypox vaccine, while declining to share doses with Africa, could leave millions of people unprotected against a more dangerous version of the disease and risk continued spillovers of the virus into humans, public health officials are warning.

Critics fear a repeat of the catastrophic inequity problems seen during the coronavirus pandemic.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched nighttime attacks on several Ukrainian cities, Ukrainian officials said Saturday as they and Moscow blamed each other for the deaths of dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war in a separatist-controlled area of the country’s east.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have a duty to react after shelling of a prison complex in Donetsk province killed the POWS.

MOSCOW, July 29. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual question and answer session, known as the Direct Line with Vladimir Putin, will not be held until fall, the dates may be determined in September, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday.

GENEVA, July 29. /TASS/: A Swiss bank has blocked the personal account of Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Office and Other International Organizations in Geneva Gennady Gatilov, the diplomatic mission of the Russian Federation said in a commentary released on Friday.

BERLIN, July 29. /TASS/: Germany still needs Russian gas and the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which has been completed, but not yet certified, can be used in the absence of other options, Head of the Bundestag’s [the German parliament - TASS] Committee on Climate Action and Energy Klaus Ernst told TASS on Friday.