Europe

March 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine's nuclear energy authority on Friday published a video of what it said were four Russian guards who had accompanied a delivery of fuel elements, visibly uncomfortable as they made statements criticising Russia's military operation in Ukraine.

The authority, Energoatom, said on its Telegram channel that the men had accompanied a shipment of Russian fuel rods to Ukraine's Rivne nuclear plant last month.

LISBON, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Portugal's general government deficit was 2.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021, Statistics Portugal (INE) said on Friday, confirming previous forecasts by Banco de Portugal and the Public Finance Council (CFP).

According to the INE, the public administration had a negative balance (net borrowing) of 5.977 billion euros (6.566 billion U.S. dollars).

In the fiscal year 2020, the country's government ran a deficit of 5.8 percent of GDP.

BRUSSELS, March 25 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden has said he was in favor of Russia being excluded from the Group of 20 (G20).

If Russia is not excluded, at least Ukraine should also be invited to the G20 group as an observer, said Biden at a press conference at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.

Biden is in Brussels to attend three summits addressing the Russia-Ukraine conflict, including the NATO extraordinary summit, the Group of Seven summit and the European Council meeting.

BRUSSELS, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies gathered here on Thursday, for what Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called "an extraordinary NATO summit in an extraordinary security situation" amid the Ukraine crisis.

The meeting, held on the day that marked one month since the start of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, might temporarily boost unity across the Atlantic, but could not easily balance the demands of relevant parties or put out the fires in Ukraine.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The United States and European Union on Friday announced a new partnership to reduce the continent’s reliance on Russian energy, a step top officials characterized as the start of a years-long initiative to further isolate Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. President Joe Biden asserted that Russian President Vladimir Putin uses energy to “coerce and manipulate his neighbors” and uses the profits from its sale to “drive his war machine.”

RZESZOW, Poland (AP) — President Joe Biden visited U.S. troops stationed near Poland’s border with Ukraine on Friday and was getting a first hand look at the growing humanitarian response to the millions of Ukrainians who are fleeing to Poland to escape Russia’s assault on their homeland.

Biden’s first stop was with members of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, visiting a barber shop and dining facility set up for the troops, where he invited himself to sit down and share some pizza. The Americans are serving alongside Polish troops.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — About 300 people were killed in the Russian airstrike last week on a Mariupol theater that was being used as a shelter, Ukrainian authorities said Friday in what would make it the war’s deadliest known attack on civilians yet.

The bloodshed is certain to certain to fuel allegations Moscow has committed war crimes by killing civilians, whether deliberately or by indiscriminate fire.

24 March 2022; MEMO: Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, inflicted "exorbitant" domestic abuse against his ex-wife, a senior British judge has concluded as he awarded her sole responsibility for looking after their children, Reuters reports.

The ruling caps the end of an extraordinary, bitter and hugely expensive three-year custody battle at the High Court in London between Mohammed and his former wife, Princess Haya bint Al-Hussein, half-sister of Jordan's King Abdullah.

BELGRADE, March 24. /TASS/: Should Serbia agree to impose sanctions on Russia, by taking such a move it would justify NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999, Russia’s ambassador to Serbia, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko told the newspaper Informer in an interview.

PARIS, March 24. /TASS/: France’s car producer Renault has suspended the operation of its Moscow plant and it is assessing available options regarding the stake in Avtovaz, the company’s press service said in a statement on Wednesday.