MOSCOW, September 4. /TASS/: Two drones were destroyed by Russian air defenses over the Black Sea off Crimea and over the Kursk Region, as Kiev made yet another attempt to attack Russian facilities, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Monday.

"At about 1:00 a.m. today, an attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terror attack on facilities on Russian soil with the use of two unmanned aerial vehicles was foiled. [Russian] air defense forces on duty destroyed the Ukrainian UAVs over the Black Sea off the Crimean Peninsula and over the Kursk Region," the ministry said.

TEHRAN, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- Iran on Monday blamed Western states' "miscalculations about the riots in Iran" for the failure to conclude talks on the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal in September last year.

At a weekly press conference in the Iranian capital Tehran, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani said the final draft resolution of the talks was ready to be concluded in September 2022 to prepare the ground for all sides' return to the deal, the Iranian Students' News Agency reported.

NEW DELHI, Sept 3 (Reuters) - India switched off its moon rover, the first craft to reach the lunar south pole, after it completed its two-week assignment conducting experiments, the country's space agency said.

The Pragyan rover from the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was "set into Sleep mode" but with batteries charged and receiver on, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, late on Saturday.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister claimed on Monday that U.S. military equipment left behind during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan has fallen into militant hands and ultimately made its way to the Pakistani Taliban.

The equipment — which includes a wide variety of items, from night vision goggles to firearms — is now “emerging as a new challenge” for Islamabad as it has enhanced the fighting capabilities of the Pakistani Taliban, Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said.

LONDON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Armenia's prime minister has said his country's policy of solely relying on Russia to guarantee its security was a strategic mistake because Moscow has been unable to deliver and is in the process of winding down its role in the wider region.

In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica published on Sunday, Nikol Pashinyan accused Russia of failing to ensure Armenia's security in the face of what he said was aggression from neighbouring Azerbaijan over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

MOSCOW, September 3 /TASS/: The Russian Aerospace Force delivered a group drone strike against fuel storage facilities used to support Ukrainian army materiel, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"The Russian Aerospace Force made a group strike by unmanned aerial vehicles this night against fuel storages used for supplies to military vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the port of Reni, Odessa Region. The strike objective was achieved. All the designated targets were engaged," the ministry said.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Copenhagen’s mayor on Monday urged foreigners not to buy weed in the city’s Christiania neighborhood where a 30-year-old man was shot and killed and four others injured two weeks ago due to gang turf wars fighting over the marijuana trade in the area.

The Aug. 26 killing was the latest in a bloody feud between rival gangs, the Hells Angels and the outlawed Loyal to Family. Both are trying to monopolize the sale of cannabis in Christiania.

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — Men walk through a lush plantation between Ecuador ’s balmy Pacific coast and its majestic Andes, lopping hundreds of bunches of green bananas from groaning plants twice their height.

Workers haul the bunches to an assembly line, where the bananas are washed, weighed and plastered with stickers for European buyers. Owner Franklin Torres is monitoring all activity on a recent morning to make sure the fruit meets international beauty standards — and ever more important, is packed for shipment free of cocaine.

SEOUL, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- Lee Jae-myung, leader of the South Korean main opposition Democratic Party, on Monday urged Japan to stop dumping radioactive wastewater into the ocean, which will endanger the safety of people around the world.

Lee made the remark during a meeting with global experts and activists, including those from Japan and the United States, who participated both online and offline at the parliamentary building in Seoul.

FORNELLI, Italy, Sept 3 (Reuters) - In October 1943, after the Nazis began a brutal occupation of their former ally, German troops hanged six Italian civilians on a hillside in southern Italy as collective punishment for the killing of a soldier, who had been foraging for food.

Eighty years later, some of the relatives of the men put to death in Fornelli are finally set to receive a share of 12 million euros ($13 million) awarded by an Italian court as compensation for their families' trauma.

MOSCOW, September 3. /TASS/: Four ships have sailed through the temporary corridor in the Black Sea, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said on Sunday.

"Four ships have already passed along our new alternative maritime corridor from our southern seaports," he said in a video address on his Telegram channel.

The Hong Kong-flagged Joseph Schulte container vessel was the first to sail along Kiev’s temporary corridor from the port of Odessa on August 16.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Vladimir Putin on Monday, hoping to persuade the Russian leader to rejoin a deal allowing Ukraine to safely export grain. Moscow withdrew from the agreement in July. But Putin made it clear that the initiative would not be restored right now.

Here’s what’s at stake:

WHAT WAS THE OUTCOME OF THE TALKS?

Putin poured cold water over hopes for a revival of the grain initiative, saying the West must first meet its demands on facilitating Russian agricultural exports.