Europe

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: Global Affairs Canada reported on Saturday that it plans to expand its sanctions against Russia.

"The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today announced that Canada intends to impose further sanctions in relation to Russia," according to the statement. Ottawa will expand restrictions with regards to the gas, oil and manufacturing sectors.

On Friday, the Canadian authorities expanded sanctions against Russia, adding 29 private individuals and 15 organizations to the list, including Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.

LUGANSK, July 10. /TASS/: Ukraine’s armed forces again shelled the city of Alchevsk in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) on Sunday using HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems supplied by the US, the LPR’s mission at the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of ceasefire (JCCC) reported on its Telegram channel.

According to it, four missiles were launched from the direction of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) at 01:10 Moscow time.

On Saturday, Alchevsk was shelled with six HIMARS rockets. This was the first shelling of this city by the Ukrainian forces since 2014.

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: Canada will return to Germany a repaired Siemens turbine for the Nord Stream pipeline, Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson said, according to The Globe and Mail newspaper.

"Canada will grant a time-limited and revocable permit for Siemens Canada to allow the return of repaired Nordstream 1 turbines to Germany, supporting Europe’s ability to access reliable and affordable energy as they continue to transition away from Russian oil and gas," the newspaper quoted him as saying on Saturday.

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 death toll rose by 39 to 381,583 over the past day, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Sunday.

Daily deaths dropped below 40 for the first time since April 16 of 2020. The figure was 45 on Saturday.

The number of news cases on Sunday fell to 3,398 from 3,539 a day earlier, reaching a total of 18,462,211.

The number of recoveries dropped to 2,496 compared with 3,086 a day before, reaching 17,888,560.

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin prevented a humanitarian catastrophe when he launched a special operation in Ukraine, speaker of the Russian State Duma (lower parliament house) Vyacheslav Volodin said on Sunday.

The Russian president "has done his best to ensure Russia’s security," to protect people living in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), he said in an interview with the Moscow.Kremlin.Putin program on the Duma TV channel.

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’ departure ahead of a Group of Twenty meeting is seen as a "deep boycott" of the Russian delegation, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday.

"You know, it is a kind of deep boycott of the Russian delegation to leave a day before," she said in an interview with the Voskresny Vecher (Sunday Evening) with Vladimir Solovyov program on the Rossiya-1 television channel.

She said earlier that the West had failed to boycott Russia at the meeting of the G20 foreign ministers.

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: The Kremlin so far has no position on the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDPR) idea to replace the term "president" with "ruler," Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told TASS on Sunday.

"It is a new idea. There is no position on this matter," he said when asked what the Kremlin thinks about this idea.

LONDON, July 10 (Reuters) - The contest to replace British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gathered pace on Sunday as five more candidates declared their intention to run, with many pledging lower taxes and a clean start from Johnson's scandal-ridden premiership.

Johnson on Thursday said he would resign as prime minister, after lawmakers and cabinet colleagues rebelled over his handling of a series of scandals, including breaches of lockdown rules in gatherings at his Downing Street office.

He said he would stay on until a new leader was elected.

July 10 (Reuters) - Russian forces struck two Ukrainian army hangars storing U.S.-produced M777 howitzers, a type of artillery weapon, near Kostantinovka in the Donetsk region, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday.

MADRID, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Spain is experiencing its second heatwave of the summer with 30 provinces placed on alert by the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) on Sunday.

Temperatures are expected to reach 43 degrees centigrade in Badajoz in southwest Spain and over 40 in provinces such as Seville, Cordoba, Jaen and Caceres, which have all been placed on an 'orange' level of alert in a three-tier system, which climbs from yellow to red.