Europe

KYIV, July 9 (Reuters) - Ukrainian defenders battled on Saturday to contain Russian forces along several fronts, officials said, as the United States urged China to align itself with the West in opposing the invasion following an ill-tempered G20 meeting.

A missile strike on the northeastern city of Kharkiv wounded three civilians, its governor said, though Russia's main attacks appeared focused southeast of there in Luhansk and Donetsk.

LISBON, July 8 (Xinhua) -- The Portuguese Directorate-General for Health on Friday confirmed the first monkeypox case in a woman in Portugal.

The southern European country had reported 473 monkeypox cases, all in men, before the latest case were detected. The majority of the cases were reported in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region, according to health authorities.

Monkeypox is common in wild animals like rodents and primates, and humans can also get infected with the virus.

PARIS, July 8 (Xinhua) -- The total number of COVID-19 related deaths in France passed the 150,000 mark on Friday, after 74 deaths related to the virus were recorded in hospitals in the past 24 hours, announced the country's public health agency.

According to the French Ministry of Health, the number of COVID-19 tests reached 3 million in one week, and the number of 16 to 25 year-olds testing positive increased by 60 percent this week.

France's total number of COVID-19 related deaths hit the 140,000 mark on March 11, two years after the pandemic hit the country.

LONDON (AP) — A British Cabinet minister tipped to be a frontrunner in the Conservative Party’s leadership race ruled himself out of the contest Saturday.

Defense Minister Ben Wallace said after “careful consideration” and discussion with colleagues and family, he will not be running to replace Boris Johnson as Conservative leader and the country’s next prime minister.

Wallace was seen by some as the favorite choice among Conservative party members in what’s set to be a wide open leadership race following Johnson’s resignation announcement on Thursday.

SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — They were the ones who lived in a world in which their husbands, sons, brothers, uncles and nephews were massacred. They were the ones who fought to make sure that world would neither deny nor forget the truth of what happened in Srebrenica.

As thousands converge on the eastern Bosnian town to commemorate the 27th anniversary Monday of Europe’s only acknowledged genocide since World War II, the crucial role women have played in forging a global understanding of the 1995 massacre also is getting recognized.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces are managing to “raise true hell” in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland despite reports of them taking an operational pause, a regional governor said Saturday, while the government in Kyiv urged people in Russian-occupied southern areas to evacuate “by all possible means” ahead of a Ukrainian offensive.

Deadly Russian shelling was reported in Ukraine’s east and south.

HELSINKI (AP) — Estonia’s governing center-right Reform Party of Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has reached a tentative deal to form a coalition government with two other parties, ending a month-long political stalemate in the Baltic nation.

Kallas, prime minister of the European Union and NATO nation since January 2021, kicked out the left-leaning Center Party from the two-party coalition on June 3 following disputes over spending and welfare policies amid increasing household costs due to high inflation.

BRUSSELS (AP) — From his days stoking anti-European Union sentiment with exaggerated newspaper stories, to his populist campaign leading Britain out of the bloc and reneging on the post-Brexit trade deal he signed, outgoing U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been the bane of Brussels for all so many years.

MOSCOW, July 8. /TASS/: The Council of Federation, the upper house of the Russian parliament, approved at its meeting the draft law on support of counter-terrorism and other operations abroad by Russian Armed Forces, other troops and authorities.

MOSCOW, July 8. /TASS/: The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday said many Russian partners at the G20 meeting signaled it’s unacceptable to isolate Moscow.