Europe

13 July 2022; MEMO: The Dutch government on Monday issued "deepest apologies' for the role played by Dutch peacekeepers in Bosnia when an estimated 8,000 Bosniak Muslims were massacred by Serb forces, Anadolu reported.

Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren offered the apology on the 27th commemoration of the genocide at the cemetery in Potocari in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"Only one party is to blame for the horrific genocide: the Bosnian Serb army," Ollongren said.

Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian foreign minister says grain exports from his country’s ports won’t resume without security guarantees for ship owners, cargo owners and Ukraine as an independent nation.

Military officials from Russia and Ukraine were set to hold their governments’ first face-to-face talks in months Wednesday. They planned to meet in Istanbul to discuss a United Nations plan for getting blocked Ukrainian grain to world markets through the Black Sea.

12 July 2022; MEMO: More than 50 detainees and unarmed men were killed by British troops in Afghanistan, according to newly obtained military reports and an investigation by the BBC, Anadolu Agency reported.

BBC Panorama program, which is to be aired on Tuesday night, looked into documents of operations by the Special Air Service (SAS) – a British elite unit used in special operations – and found they include "reports covering more than a dozen 'kill or capture' raids carried out by one SAS squadron in Helmand in 2010/11."

MOSCOW, July 12. /TASS/: After all scrap metal is removed from the Kildin Island in the Barents Sea, the island may become a national park and a destination for responsible ecology tourism, the Russian Geographical Society’s press service said on Monday.

MINSK, July 12. /TASS/: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that the West’s policy is bringing the world closer to the brink of a major, unwinnable war.

"Unfortunately, this Western policy is bringing the world closer to the abyss of a major war where, as you know, there won’t be a winner anymore," he stressed at a ceremony honoring the graduates of military institutions and top officers on Tuesday, according to the BelTA news agency.

MOSCOW, July 12. /TASS/: A split in the global sports is likely to be widened further in case athletes from Russia are barred from the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, Russia’s senior sports official said on Tuesday.

"I am not giving assessments at the moment seeing how some of the sports federations are dabbling saying that it is unacceptable to do so based on the nationality," Igor Artemyev, the chair of the Supreme Council of the Russian Rugby Federation (RRF), said addressing a news briefing on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, July 12. /TASS/: Kiev is using any pretexts not to let a mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visit the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in Energodar, which is controlled by the Zaporozhye region military-civilian administration, an official of this administration said on Tuesday after Ukraine’s strike at Energodar.

"Kiev is looking for and creating any pretexts to prevent a visit of IAEA inspectors to the Zaporozhye NPP," Vladimir Rogov, a member of the council of the region’s military-civilian administration, wrote on his Telegram channel.

MOSCOW, July 12. /TASS/: Poland is seeking to conceal its expansion to Western Ukraine and is taking nervously the leak of its plans of dismembering Ukraine, director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Naryshkin said on Tuesday.

"Information coming to the Service indicates a nervous reaction of Poland’s leadership to the fact that its plans of dismembering Ukraine have come in the public eye," the Service’s press bureau quoted him as saying.

LONDON, July 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Pres Joe Biden will make his first visit as US president to Saudi Arabia on Friday, where he will seek to persuade Riyadh to pump more oil to bring down prices that are fuelling inflation to the highest levels in decades. 

Prior to his election, Biden had vowed that Saudi should be a “pariah” state following the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in a recalibration of relations with the oil-producing country that is a kingpin of the OPEC oil cartel.

LONDON, July 12 (Reuters) - Former British health minister Sajid Javid on Tuesday dropped out of the leadership contest to replace Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister.

"There is an abundance of both ideas and talent in our party. One of the candidates will be given the honour of becoming prime minister," Javid said in a statement.

"I look forward to seeing the debate unfold and to see colleagues working together as a united Conservative Party once the leadership election is concluded."