Europe

31 July 2018; AFP; An alleged neo-Nazi was acquitted by a German court Tuesday for a bombing 18 years ago targeting Jewish immigrants, in what angry victims' advocates called a historic "legal mistake".

Ralf Spies, 52, was cleared of 12 counts of attempted murder with a "racist" motive and with causing an explosion in the attack at a commuter rail station in the western city of Duesseldorf on July 27, 2000.

DVORIKI /Vladimir Region/, July 30. /TASS/. The Russian Federation possesses the information about military plans of the US and other countries against it, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday in his speech before the participants of the Russian educational youth forum Terra Scientia.

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/. Russia may resume the production of super-heavy Antonov An-124 cargo planes. They will be digitalized and will carry new PD-35 engines, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said on Monday.

"The resumption of the production of An-124 planes will be linked with the possibilities of PD-35 engines that are made in the United Engine-Building Corporation. But there will be nothing new. We will simply digitalize the An-124 with new engines," Borisov said.

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s aspiration to make his country a full-fledged member of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), expressed at the Johannesburg summit, cannot be fulfilled now, Executive Director for the National Committee on BRICS Research Georgy Toloraya told TASS.

26 July 2018; DW; The agriculture minister of Romania had to backtrack after comparing the incineration of dead pigs to Auschwitz. But he has so far stopped short of heeding calls for his resignation.

Romania's minister of agriculture, Petre Daea, said on Thursday that he did not mean to offend anyone when he compared the incineration of dead pigs to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

MOSCOW, July 27. /TASS/. China plans to carry out the first-time test firing of Russia’s S-400 Triumf missile defense systems in the end of July or in early August, a military and diplomatic source told TASS.

"It is planned that in late July-early August the unit of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, which underwent training in Russia, will carry out the firing against a simulated ballistic target at a Chinese firing ground," the source said.

Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation has declined to comment on the report.

FLORENCE, July 25 (NNN-Bernama) -- A 70-year-old priest working at a parish near Florence has been arrested for sexual assault, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

The priest has been accused of sexual assault after being caught in a car with a 10-year-old girl on Monday, sources said Wednesday.

MOSCOW, July 23. /TASS/. After Brexit, the United Kingdom will need to sign new deals with Russia and other countries with which London’s relations are subject to the EU’s legal and contractual basis, Russia’s envoy to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov said in an interview with TASS on Monday.

MOSCOW, July 21. /TASS/. The Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights has filed a request with the US Commission on Civil Rights, asking to protect the rights of Russian citizen Maria Butina, says a letter to the commission’s chair, Catherine Lhamon.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo to release detained Maria Butina who has been arrested on “fabricated charges”.

Butina was accused for trying to infiltrate the National Rifle Association and influence US policy toward Russia, and was arrested by American authorities.