Europe

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian rockets hit the eastern Ukraine town of Chasiv Yar, destroying a five-story apartment building and killing at least 10 people, officials said Sunday.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said about three dozen people could be trapped in the rubble. Rescuers have made contact with two people who are under the wreckage, he said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Ukrainian emergency services initially gave a death toll of six, but later said it has risen to 10. They did not say how many people may still be in the rubble.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — It took a decade of court battles and street protests, but Balkan activists fighting to protect some of Europe’s last wild rivers have scored an important conservation victory in Bosnia.

ZHURIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — Oleksandr Chubuk’s warehouse should be empty, awaiting the new harvest, with his supply of winter wheat already shipped abroad. Instead, his storage bins in central Ukraine are piled high with grain he cannot ship out because of the war with Russia.

The green spikes of wheat are already ripening. Soon, the horizon will look like the Ukrainian flag, a sea of gold beneath a blue sky. Chubuk expects to reap 500 tons, but for the first time in his 30 years as a farmer, he’s uncertain about what to do with it.

ZHURIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — Oleksandr Chubuk’s warehouse should be empty, awaiting the new harvest, with his supply of winter wheat already shipped abroad. Instead, his storage bins in central Ukraine are piled high with grain he cannot ship out because of the war with Russia.

The green spikes of wheat are already ripening. Soon, the horizon will look like the Ukrainian flag, a sea of gold beneath a blue sky. Chubuk expects to reap 500 tons, but for the first time in his 30 years as a farmer, he’s uncertain about what to do with it.

KOSTIANTYNIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — By the time the Russians invaded, 43-year-old Mufti Said Ismahilov — one of the Muslim spiritual leaders of Ukraine — had already resolved that he would step aside from his religious duties to fight for his country.

At the end of last year, as warnings of an imminent attack grew louder, Ismahilov began training with a local territorial defense battalion. By then he had served as a mufti for thirteen years.

DONETSK, July 9. /TASS/: Three service members of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have been killed and five more wounded in the past 24 hours, fighting the Ukrainian forces, Eduard Basurin, deputy chief of the DPR People’s Militia, said on Saturday.

"We regret to inform you that three defenders of the Donetsk People's Republic were killed and five more were wounded in the line of military duty, fighting for DPR independence," the press service of the DPR defense ministry quotes his statement on its Telegram channel.

MOSCOW, July 9. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the funeral of Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS.

"Putin - no. The rest depends on protocol rules," he said when asked about the participation of Russia’s representatives.

Kyodo news agency reported earlier the funeral of Shinzo Abe would take place on July 12 in his hometown of Shimonoseki (Yamaguchi Prefecture).

PARIS, July 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Rampant exploitation of nature is a threat to the billions of people across the world who rely on wild species for food, energy and income, according to a new report from United Nations biodiversity experts published Friday.

From fishing and logging to the use of wild plants in medicines and perfumes, societies across the planet are deeply dependent on species that have not been tamed or cultivated in farming, with annual global legal and illegal trade in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

VIENNA, July 9 (Reuters) - Iran has escalated its uranium enrichment further with the use of advanced machines at its underground Fordow plant in a setup that can more easily change between enrichment levels, the U.N. atomic watchdog said in a report on Saturday seen by Reuters.

Western diplomats have long expressed concern about devices this cascade, or cluster, of centrifuges is equipped with.

The use of these so-called modified sub-headers means Iran could switch more quickly and easily to enriching to higher purity levels.

KYIV, July 9 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday dismissed several of Kyiv's senior envoys abroad including the country's outspoken ambassador to Germany, the presidential website said.

In a decree that gave no reason for the move, Zelenskiy announced the sacking of Ukraine's ambassadors to Germany, India, the Czech Republic, Norway and Hungary.

It was not immediately clear if the envoys would be assigned new positions.