Reuters World News Summary

In Tehran, Putin also held his first face-to-face meeting since the invasion with a NATO leader, Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan, to discuss a deal that would resume Ukraine's Black Sea grain exports as well as the conflict in northern Syria. U.S. places Russia on human trafficking, child soldier lists The United States on Tuesday placed Russia on lists of countries engaged in a "policy or pattern" of human trafficking and forced labor or whose security forces or government-backed armed groups recruit or use child soldiers.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Tunisian judge lets Islamist leader go after hearing

Tunisia's Islamist movement leader Rached Ghannouchi was allowed to return home after a court hearing on Tuesday in a money laundering investigation that his Ennahda party rejects as a political ploy. The preliminary hearing before an investigative judge lasted nearly 10 hours and followed warnings from activists that the authorities were contemplating arresting the 81-year-old Ghannouchi to hold in pre-trial detention.

France battles massive wildfires, Britain breaks temperature record

Firefighters in southwestern France battled on Tuesday to contain massive forest wildfires and Britain recorded its highest ever temperature, buckling train tracks and igniting grass fires in tinder dry conditions around London. Southern and western Germany and Belgium were also braced for potentially record-breaking temperatures as the heatwave, which scientists attribute to climate change, edged north and east.

Belarus officials behind hoax that grounded dissident's flight, U.N. agency says

The U.N.'s aviation agency on Tuesday for the first time blamed senior Belarus officials for a hoax last year that grounded a Ryanair Holdings PLC flight and led to the arrest of a dissident reporter. The plane was on its way from Athens to Vilnius in May 2021 when Belarus controllers ordered it to land in Minsk, citing a bomb threat. Once it was on the ground, Belarus journalist Roman Protasevich was detained along with his then-girlfriend.

Canada PM Trudeau blasts Hockey Canada leaders after sex assault fund reports

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday it was hard to trust those in charge at Hockey Canada after reports that the national governing body maintained a fund to pay for uninsured liabilities, including sexual abuse claims. According to a report on the Globe and Mail website, a multimillion-dollar fund financed by registration fees of players across the hockey-mad country is used to settle abuse claims with minimal outside scrutiny.

Putin says Ukraine did not make good on preliminary peace deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said Moscow did not see any desire from Ukraine to fulfil the terms of what he described as a preliminary peace deal agreed to in March. Putin, speaking to reporters in televised comments after a visit to Iran, said Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were offering to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, which Moscow's forces invaded in late February.

Exclusive-Russia seen restarting gas exports from Nord Stream 1 on schedule

Russian gas flows via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline are seen restarting on time on Thursday after the completion of scheduled maintenance, two sources familiar with the export plans told Reuters. The pipeline, which accounts for more than a third of Russian natural gas exports to the European Union, was halted for ten days of annual maintenance on July 11.

Ukraine parliament removes security chief, Zelenskiy fires another top official

Ukraine's parliament dismissed the domestic security chief and prosecutor general on Tuesday, two days after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy suspended them for failing to root out Russian spies. Ivan Bakanov was fired from his position at the helm of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) by a comfortable majority, several lawmakers said on the Telegram messaging app.

Putin forges ties with Iran's supreme leader in Tehran talks

Russian President Vladimir Putin had talks with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran on Tuesday, the Kremlin leader's first trip outside the former Soviet Union since Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. In Tehran, Putin also held his first face-to-face meeting since the invasion with a NATO leader, Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan, to discuss a deal that would resume Ukraine's Black Sea grain exports as well as the conflict in northern Syria.

U.S. places Russia on human trafficking, child soldier lists

The United States on Tuesday placed Russia on lists of countries engaged in a "policy or pattern" of human trafficking and forced labor or whose security forces or government-backed armed groups recruit or use child soldiers. The State Department included the lists in its annual human trafficking report, which for the first time featured under a 2019 congressional mandate a "State-Sponsored Trafficking in Persons" section.

U.S. Senate committee backs accession of Finland, Sweden to NATO

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday backed Finland and Sweden's accession to NATO, paving the way for the full Senate to vote on the most significant expansion of the 30-member alliance since the 1990s. The 22-member panel approved the expansion by voice vote, with just one member - Republican Senator Rand Paul - asking to be recorded as "present."

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