BEIJING, July 6 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday urged the military to deepen war and combat planning to increase the chances of victory in actual combat, Xinhua news agency said, renewing his call to troops to safeguard China's sovereignty and territory.

Xi said the world has entered a new period of turmoil and change and China's security situation has become more unstable and uncertain, according to state-run Xinhua, in comments he made to troops while on an inspection tour of the Eastern Theater Command.

ASUNCION, July 6 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — Paraguayan law enforcement officers on Wednesday destroyed as many as 11 tons of marijuana seized from alleged drug traffickers in the northeastern department of Amambay, bordering Brazil, the ABC Color newspaper reported.    

The Strategic Intelligence Directorate officers, attached to the National Anti-Drug Secretariat, managed to detect the drug during an investigation at a production and storage center at the La Paraguaya Natural Reserve.

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired cruise missiles Thursday at a western Ukraine city far from the front line of the war, killing at least four people in an apartment building in what officials said was the heaviest attack on civilian areas of Lviv since the Kremlin’s forces invaded the country last year.

The nighttime attack destroyed the roof and the top two floors of a residential building, injuring 34 people. Emergency crews with search dogs went through the rubble.

BUCHAREST, July 6 (Reuters) - Ukraine's on-off Black Sea grain deal has made the nearest port of Constanta in neighbouring Romania a key alternative that is set for volumes doubling its record years and months of delays with a domestic crop looming, industry experts and traders said.

Ukraine, one of the world's leading grain and oilseed exporters, saw its Black Sea ports blocked after Russia's invasion in February 2022.

SEOUL, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Japan's planned discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean will pose a serious threat to the world's oceans, lawmakers of South Korea's main opposition Democratic Party said Thursday.

"The discharge of contaminated water from the Fukushima (Daiichi) Nuclear Power Plant poses a serious threat to the world's oceans," Wi Seong-gon, a Democratic Party lawmaker and chief of the party's prevention committee on the release of Fukushima nuclear wastewater, told a press conference with foreign correspondents here.

VIENNA, July 6 (NNN-XINHUA) — Energy and oil ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Wednesday expressed support for the latest production cuts by Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Algeria.

   Saudi Arabia and Algeria are among OPEC’s 13 member states, and Russia is one of the organization’s 10 allies. The 23 countries form an oil-producer alliance called the “OPEC+.”

BEIJING, July 6 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday began a four-day visit to China that was expected to focus on easing ties between the world's two largest economies, despite low expectations on both sides.

Shortly after arriving in the Chinese capital, Yellen said she was glad to be in Beijing and looked forward to advancing President Joe Biden's goal of deepening communication between the two countries.

PHNOM PENH, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia on Thursday launched guidelines on online child protection to ensure a safe and positive online experience for all children.

Undertaken by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, with support from the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the guidelines aim to encourage industries within the sector to prevent and respond to current and emerging harms posed by the use of technology in a timely manner.

MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/: Plans to relocate religious relics from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra monastery to the West make it clear that Ukraine is looked upon as a colony, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Thursday.

"It’s a tradition for colonial powers to behave like bandits toward the national and cultural heritages of the countries they view as their colonies. Undoubtedly, they consider Ukraine to be their colony, not just their fiefdom," she pointed out.

05 July 2023; MEMO: Israel is advancing plans with Greece and Cyprus to build the world's longest undersea electric cable which will connect European and Gulf countries through Jordan and Egypt. The project was approved by the Israeli national planning and building council yesterday. It will see the construction of a 150-kilometre (93-mile) cable to distribute renewable energy efficiently.

PRETORIA, July 6 (NNN-SANEWS) — International Relations and Cooperation Deputy Minister Alvin Botes is leading South Africa’s delegation to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Ministerial Meeting of the Coordinating Bureau (CoB) in Baku, Azerbaijan.  

“The meeting reviews the movement’s principled positions on global issues pertaining to development, human rights, peace and security, and the promotion and preservation of multilateralism, in line with the Charter of the United Nations and the Bandung Founding Principles of the NAM.”

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, July 6 (Reuters) - Two New Jersey firefighters were killed and five injured while battling an intense blaze overnight on a cargo ship packed with hundreds of vehicles docked at Port Newark, officials said on Thursday.

The Italian-flagged Grande Costa d’Avorio was carrying 1,200 new and used vehicles when a fire broke out on its 10th deck at about 10:30 p.m. EST (0330 GMT) on Wednesday, vessel operator Grimaldi Deep Sea said in a statement.