Europe

GENEVA (AP) — The deadly Ebola outbreak in Congo is now an international health emergency, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday after a case was confirmed in a city of 2 million people .

A WHO expert committee declined on three previous occasions to advise the United Nations health agency to make the declaration for this outbreak, even though other experts say it has long met the required conditions. More than 1,600 people have died since August in the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, which is unfolding in a region described as a war zone.

STRASBOURG, France, July 17 (NNN-Xinhua) — Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen was elected to be the next president of the European Commission on Tuesday with a slim majority.

She made history as the first female chief executive of the European Union. The slim majority also helped avert a political crisis for the world’s largest trading bloc.

The European Parliament currently comprises 747 lawmakers, so the threshold needed to be elected was 374 votes, more than half of its component members.

17 July 2019; MEMO: A Hamas delegation headed by Dr Musa Abu Marzouq yesterday met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Bogdanov in Moscow.

Abu Marzouq briefed the Russian official on the political developments of the Palestinian issue including the US’ “deal of the century”, stressing that all Palestinian people reject it.

The senior Russian official confirmed that Moscow is interested in following up on the political developments in Palestine and the region.

MOSCOW, July 17. /TASS/: A foreign tanker which made a distress call after experiencing a technical malfunction in the Persian Gulf was towed by the Iranian navy to the country’s territorial waters, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Tuesday.

"Iranian sailors acted in strict compliance with international rules," the Al Mayadeen TV quoted the Iranian diplomat as saying.

According to him, the ship will stay on the territory of Iran until the technical issue on board is fixed.

MINSK, July 17. /TASS/: Minsk and Russia have agreed on the key areas of the development of integration processes within the Union State of Belarus and Russia, Belarusian Economy Minister Dmitry Krutoi said on Wednesday.

"I think the concept of our future activities has been agreed upon for the most part," Krutoi, who co-chairs a Russian-Belarusian intergovernmental working group, said, as cited by the BelTA news agency.

MINSK, July 17. /TASS/: Investigators are pressing charges against two Russian nationals arrested over explosions during a festive fireworks display in the Belarusian capital of Minsk on July 3, the Russian Embassy in Belarus informed TASS on Wednesday.

"Charges have been filed, and the investigative activities are continuing," said Embassy Spokesman Sergei Aryaev.

MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/: Russia’s Glonass satellite navigation system is protected against technical issues that earlier knocked down its European rival, Galileo, a spokesperson for Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos said on Tuesday.

"[The Glonass system] is certainly protected. In order to prevent such errors, rocket and space industry enterprises have a multiple-level checking systems for software. Besides, the ground-based control hub of the Glonass space system has automated control systems and reserve capacities," the source said.

MOSOW, July 17. /TASS/: The trial against Chief Editor of the RIA Novosti Ukraine Kirill Vyshinsky is absurd, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the Argumenty i Fakty daily.

17 July 2019; AFP: A senior French cabinet minister and close ally of President Emmanuel Macron resigned on Tuesday after reports accused him of extravagant state-funded lobster dinners and misusing public housing in a blow to the centrist government.

Francois de Rugy, who was named environment minister in September 2018, announced his departure after a week of revelations from the leftwing website Mediapart.

The Hague, Jul 17 (PTI) The International Court of Justice will deliver on Wednesday its verdict in a case relating to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, whose death sentence by a Pakistani military court based on an "extracted confession" has been questioned by India.

Jadhav, 49, a retired Indian Navy officer, was sentenced to death by the Pakistani military court on charges of "espionage and terrorism" after a closed trial in April 2017. His sentencing evoked a sharp reaction in India.