MOSCOW, July 31 (Reuters) – Russia’s second-largest e-commerce company, Ozon, said on Friday that it had been forced to evacuate its warehouse in the town of Zelenodolsk in the Tatarstan region due to a Ukrainian drone alert. The evacuation took just a few minutes to complete and there were no casua
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Oprah Winfrey says she will close the school for underprivileged girls she set up in South Africa two decades ago at the end of next year. Winfrey opened the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in 2007 after being inspired by conversations with former South African Preside
By Yves Herman, Lefteris Papadimas and Emma Pinedo BORDEAUX, France, ATHENS/MADRID, July 31(Reuters) – France and Spain won some respite from days of devastating wildfires on Friday as huge blazes near Bordeaux and Madrid were brought under control, although fires continued to burn in Greece and wes
LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — Firefighters in southwestern France were working to control the last hot spots of a massive wildfire on Friday that has burned an area four times the size of Paris and forced thousands out of their homes. The blazes that burned 42,000 hectares (about 162 square miles)
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Human Rights Watch said Friday that Russian government-controlled Africa Corps aircraft killed eight civilians, including three children, in an airstrike on a village in central Mali last month. The rights group said an attack aircraft identified as a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 dropp
By Leticia Fucuchima SAO PAULO, July 31 (Reuters) – Hydropower plants are gearing up for rains to grow heavier in southern Brazil amid what scientists believe will be a severe El Niño in the coming months, with generators reviewing plans to handle large volumes of water that may need to be discharge
By Andrea Shalal and Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON, July 31 (Reuters) – A Russia sanctions bill championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham faces a tough road in Congress as Democrats and some Republicans raise concerns about new trade powers the legislation would grant President Donald Trump. Many
PHNOM PENH, July 31 (Reuters) – More than 20,000 Cambodian civilians remain displaced along the country’s border with Thailand following two rounds of fighting between the Southeast Asian neighbours last year, a UN expert said on Friday, following a visit to the disputed frontier. Tom Andrews, UN Sp
CEUTA, Spain (AP) — At least 18 migrants have died trying to reach the Spanish territory of Ceuta after thousands of people breached the frontier with Morocco and poured in. The border crisis boiled over Thursday and overnight. Spain’s state broadcaster RTVE broadcast images of burned cars on the Mo
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — It took a World Cup to transform a remote cluster of islands that’s home to more sheep than people into a cultural juggernaut. A decision by Argentina’s players to unfurl a banner about the disputed Falkland Islands after defeating England in the World Cup semifinals c
JAKARTA, July 31 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto said on Friday that South Korean President Lee Jae Myung asked him whether he could visit North Korea to open dialogue, adding that he would go. Prabowo was speaking during a meeting with the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce. As Prabo
By Nidal al-Mughrabi CAIRO, July 31 (Reuters) – Implementation of the deal to bring peace to Gaza announced by U.S. President Donald Trump will depend on Israel first meeting its commitments under an agreement reached last year, a senior Hamas official told Reuters on Friday. In a post on his Truth
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israelis across political and religious lines are worried about the weakening connection with younger Jewish Americans — who, according to a recent AP poll, tend to consider support for Israel less crucial to their Jewish identity than older adults. “It’s extremely important to us,”
LONDON (AP) — A London man has been arrested in Cyprus on suspicion of spying on a U.K. air force base on the Mediterranean island on behalf of Iran, British police said Friday. London’s Metropolitan Police force said 44-year-old Rashad Sultanov, a U.K.-Azerbaijani national, is alleged to have condu
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A methane gas explosion at a coal mine in southwestern Pakistan killed 34 miners, authorities said on Friday, despite an overnight rescue attempt. Rescuers recovered 32 bodies from the mine on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, and were working to r
MOSCOW, July 31 (Reuters) – A campaign to save a Soviet-era industrial landmark in Moscow from redevelopment has attracted thousands of supporters in an increasingly rare example of civic protest in Russia. With brickwork crenellations and colourful mosaics, the neo-Gothic Elektrozavod factory has l
LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) – A dual British-Azerbaijani national has been arrested in Cyprus on suspicion of spying on a British air base on the Mediterranean island and passing information to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, London police said on Friday. Rashad Sultanov, 44, from Islington
July 31 (Reuters) – Nearly four months after taking office, Myanmar’s junta chief turned president Min Aung Hlaing on Friday criticised the regional ASEAN bloc’s peace plan and outlined his government’s plans for the war-torn Southeast Asian country. Myanmar was plunged into turmoil in February 2021
By Yves Herman and Sarah Meyssonnier BORDEAUX, France, July 31 (Reuters) – Thousands of people evacuated in southwestern France due to a major wildfire were gradually allowed back home on Friday after authrities said the fire, which has burned for more than a week, was contained. French authorities
(Adds Western concern over patrols; paragraph 12) TAIPEI/BEIJING, July 31 (Reuters) – China’s coast guard conducted patrols it described as routine law enforcement in waters east of Taiwan on Friday, angering Taipei, which condemned the move as a political operation aimed at expanding Beijing’s cont
By Gopal Sharma KATHMANDU, July 31 (Reuters) – At least 10 climbers, including famed Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja, were missing on Pakistan’s Broad Peak after a suspected avalanche hit an expedition on the mountain, a Pakistani sports association and a person tracking the climb said on Friday. Th
By Ahmed Eljechtimi FNIDEQ, Morocco, July 31 (Reuters) – Thousands of migrants streamed into the Moroccan town of Fnideq near the border with Ceuta overnight, despite a reinforced deployment of security that foiled most attempts to cross into the Spanish enclave. Spanish state television TVE said be
SINGAPORE, July 31 (Reuters) – A concert by Massive Attack in Singapore on Wednesday is being investigated by police and media authorities for “a possible breach of licence conditions” after the British band ended their performance with a display of the Palestinian flag. Police said in a statement o
HONG KONG (AP) — China’s factory activity unexpectedly slowed in July, the first such contraction in five months, weighing on the pace of broader growth for the world’s second-largest economy. The official manufacturing purchasing managers index, or PMI, fell to 49.2 from 50.3 in June, China’s Natio
BEIJING, July 31 (Reuters) – China’s President Xi Jinping urged senior leaders of the ruling Communist Party on Friday to deepen the fight against corruption in the military and to advance the modernisation of national defence, state news agency Xinhua reported. “The barrel of the gun must always ob
KUMAMOTO, Japan (AP) — The death toll from a powerful earthquake in southwestern Japan rose to 34, the Kumamoto prefectural government said Friday, as rescuers raced in last-ditch efforts to find survivors after the quake triggered a mall explosion, toppled a factory chimney, and flattened homes acr
JAKARTA, July 31 (Reuters) – Indonesia arrested a Malaysian pilot who allegedly smuggled 26 kilograms of the mind-altering drug MDMA into the capital Jakarta while on the job and under the influence of drugs, the customs office said on Friday. Here are some details: • The pilot, 39, was arrested on
By Portia Crowe DAKAR, July 31 (Reuters) – Russian paramilitary group Africa Corps killed eight civilians, including three children, in Mali last month, Human Rights Watch said on Friday, during air strikes the campaign group called “unlawfully indiscriminate”. Established by Russia’s defence minist
By Kanishka Singh and Simon Lewis WASHINGTON, July 30 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday his so-called Board of Peace reached a deal for the total disarmament of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory. Trump said the agree
By Kyu-seok Shim and Heejin Kim SEOUL, July 31 (Reuters) – South Korean military inspectors will visit an army corps on Friday to review an incident in which troops nearly shot down an unidentified aircraft near the border with North Korea before determining it was a U.S. drone taking part in a join
