France

Chickens contaminated with Salmonella have been found in the grocery stores in Bulgaria's city of Plovdiv after an inspection by the Regional Directorate for Food Safety.

The contaminated meat was a part of a batch produced and imported from Poland, BGNES informs. The batch has been distributed in 17 cardboard boxes.

Ukraine on Tuesday brushed off strong European pressure and rejected talks with pro-Russian rebels about a truce halting a bloody insurgency convulsing the ex-Soviet nation until they laid down their arms.
      
"Now, any negotiations are possible only after the rebels completely lay down their arms," Defence Minister Valeriy Geletey said in a statement.
      

NEW YORK - Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic informed in New York on Monday the members of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) about the extent of the damage caused by the May floods in Serbia and invited them to take part in the international donor conference in Brussels on July 16.

Hundreds of passengers were evacuated from the Channel Tunnel on Monday after a train broke down due to a problem with overhead wires, resulting in long delays on the crossing between Britain and France.
   

BRUSSELS - A major donor conference to raise aid for the flood-hit population in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) will be held in Brussels on July 16 and a number of officials from Europe and the world confirmed their attendance at the event.

Atlas, a giant A400M carrier plane that the Turkish military acquired from manufacturers Airbus in May, has completed its first international flight, the army said in a written statement July 7.

Atlas carried the Solotürk team, a group of aerobatic display F-16 fighter jets, to London on July 2 and touched down in Luxembourg on its return, the statement read.

The government’s road map for a new wave of efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question includes the return of outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants to Turkey between one to three years, daily Sabah reported July 7.

"Stop use of force, start negotiations on Ukraine"

BELGRADE -- The Serbian Foreign Ministry is closely and with great concern following the situation in Ukraine, First Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić has said.

BELGRADE – The Serbian Foreign Ministry is following the situation in Ukraine with close attention and great concern and calls for stopping the use of force and starting a negotiation process in Ukraine, Serbia’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic said Sunday.

Global economic activity should strengthen in the second half of this year and accelerate in 2015 although momentum could be weaker than expected, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said on July 6, adding that the Fund did not expect a sharp slowdown in China.