Europe

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Two people were killed and more than a dozen injured early Saturday in a mass shooting in Norway’s capital, Oslo, police said, as the city was gearing up for an annual Pride parade.

The shooting happened outside a downtown Oslo bar that is popular among the city’s LGBTQ community, witnesses and local media said.

A suspect was arrested and police don’t believe any other people were involved, police spokesman Tore Barstad said.

MOSCOW, June 24. /TASS/: The Kremlin has remained mum on a publication by Der Spiegel about Germany potentially nationalizing a section of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

"Let’s not delve into hypothetical discussions. If there are any specific actions, then first of all, lawyers will be the ones responsible for providing a legal assessment of such actions, if they are indeed being discussed," he specified.

MOSCOW, June 24. /TASS/: The Russian Finance Ministry has made the coupon payment for Eurobonds mature in 2028 totaling 8.5 bln rubles ($159.4 mln), the Ministry said on Friday.

BAKU, June 24. /TASS/: The European Union and NATO are building a coalition against Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference following talks with Azerbaijani top diplomat Jeyhun Bayramov in Baku on Friday. However, in Lavrov’s words, Russia doesn’t see any risks in Ukraine and Moldova getting EU candidate status though there are no illusions that the EU will abandon its Russophobic policies anytime soon. TASS has put together the key remarks that the Russian top diplomat made.

PARIS, June 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Covid vaccines prevented nearly 20 million deaths in the first year after they were introduced, according to the first large modelling study on the topic released Friday.

   The study, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, is based on data from 185 countries and territories collected from December 8, 2020 to December 8, 2021.

   It is the first attempt to estimate the number of deaths prevented directly and indirectly as a result of Covid-19 vaccinations.

VIENNA, June 24 (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog is increasingly concerned about the welfare of Ukrainian staff at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Europe's largest, it said on Friday, adding that it must go there as soon as possible.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has for months said that the situation at Zaporizhzhia, where Ukrainian staff are working operating the plant under the order of Russian troops, poses a safety risk and that it wants to send a mission there. 

LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - Information reviewed by the U.N. human rights office suggests Israeli security forces fired the shot that killed Palestinian-American reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in May, not indiscriminate firing from Palestinians, a spokesperson said on Friday.

"It is deeply disturbing that Israeli authorities have not conducted a criminal investigation," Ravina Shamdasani told a briefing in Geneva.

KYIV, June 24 (Reuters) - Ukraine said Russian forces had "fully occupied" a town south of the strategically important city of Lysychansk in the eastern Luhansk region as of Friday, and Moscow claimed it had encircled about 2,000 Ukrainian troops in the area.

The loss of Hirske and several other settlements around it leaves Lysychansk, the last major Ukrainian-controlled city in Luhansk, in danger of being enveloped from three sides by advancing Russian forces.

BERLIN, June 24 (Reuters) - Germany is heading for a gas shortage if Russian gas supplies remain as low as they are now, and certain industries would have to be shut down if there is not enough come winter, Economy Minister Robert Habeck told Der Spiegel magazine.

"Companies would have to stop production, lay off their workers, supply chains would collapse, people would go into debt to pay their heating bills, that people would become poorer," Habeck told Der Spiegel on Friday, saying it was part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's strategy to divide the country.

BRUSSELS, June 23 (Reuters) - The European Union should stop adding sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and instead push for a ceasefire and the start of negotiations, a senior aide to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Thursday.

Speaking on the sidelines of a summit of EU leaders which granted Ukraine the status of a candidate to become a member of the EU, the aide said the more sanctions the EU adopted the more they hurt the bloc, while Russia survived.