Briefly

UKRAINE

Kyiv drone damages Russian patrol ship

Ukrainian sea drones damaged a Russian Black Sea Fleet patrol ship off Crimea, Ukrainian military intelligence said on Tuesday. The intelligence agency said on the Telegram messaging app that its special unit Group 13 attacked the patrol ship Sergey Kotov near the Kerch Strait. The message said the ship was worth about $65 million. Train traffic was temporarily stopped on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland. The Russian defense ministry did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.

EUROPEAN UNION

Apple fined $2b over music app complaint

The European Union levied its first antitrust penalty on Apple on Monday, fining the US tech giant nearly $2 billion for unfairly favoring its own music streaming service by forbidding rivals like Spotify from telling users how they could pay for cheaper subscriptions outside of iPhone apps. Apple muzzled streaming services from telling users about payment options available through their websites, which would avoid the 30 percent fee charged when people pay through apps downloaded with the iOS App Store, said the European Commission.

Deal reached to reduce plastic packaging waste

The EU reached a deal on Monday evening to ban the plastic wrapping of fruit and vegetables in supermarkets, mini packages of ketchup in restaurants and tiny shampoo bottles in hotels in a drive to cut waste from packaging. Under the deal, a range of "single-use plastic packaging formats", including the use of shrink-wrap for suitcases in airports, would be banned from 2030. Negotiators also set a target of at least 10 percent for the use of reusable packaging for alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages by the end of the decade.

UNITED STATES

Airman pleads guilty in Pentagon leaks case

The US airman accused of leaking a trove of top secret Pentagon documents pleaded guilty on Monday under a deal that saw him sentenced to some 17 years in prison in return for prosecutors dropping more serious espionage charges. Jack Teixeira, once a low-level Massachusetts Air National Guard IT specialist, was accused of orchestrating the most damaging leak of US classified documents in a decade, some of which concerned the conflict in Ukraine.

GERMANY

Nation braces for fresh rail, air travel strikes

Germany is braced for more travel misery after unions on Monday called for renewed walkouts at airline Lufthansa and rail operator Deutsche Bahn, amid escalating rows over inflation-busting pay rises. Lufthansa ground staff will stage a two-day strike from Thursday, the powerful Verdi union announced, accusing management at the airline group of showing "no willingness" to come up with an improved offer. The stoppage would impact passenger services from Thursday until Saturday, Verdi said. Some 200,000 air travelers would be affected, Lufthansa warned. The strike call comes less than a week after ground staff members at Lufthansa's technical support and aviation training units downed tools. That walkout, however, did not affect passenger travel.

UNITED KINGDOM

Rwanda plan suffers parliamentary defeats

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak suffered defeats over his legislation to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda after the House of Lords demanded greater protections to be introduced before deportation flights can take off. Under the Rwanda plan, which has yet to be carried out, asylum-seekers who arrive on England's southern coast in small, inflatable boats would be sent to live in Rwanda, but so far no one has been deported because of ongoing legal challenges. In an effort to overcome resistance from the courts, Sunak's government is passing legislation through parliament that would block further legal challenges by declaring Rwanda a so-called safe country for asylum-seekers.

Agencies Via Xinhua