July 7, 2022

*) UK PM Johnson resigns as Conservative party leader after turmoil UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resigned as the leader of the Conservative party after the latest ethics scandal around his leadership led some 50 senior lawmakers to quit the government. Johnson said outside 10 Downing Street he will resign as “it is clearly the will of the Conservative party that there should be a new leader. His resignation will trigger an internal election to pick a new leader of the Conservative Party, who will also be the next prime minister. *) Ukraine 'repels' some Russian advances in Donbass In eastern Ukraine, Russia continues to bombard the city of Slovyansk, forcing hundreds of civilians to flee. The Ukrainian military has claimed it has repelled enemy units from advancing towards the city, as well as Russian attacks on a town and village north of Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv near the Russian border. Russian forces are advancing in the Donetsk region, after it took over neighbouring Luhansk. *) Austrian parliament unanimously adopts Srebrenica genocide resolution Austria's parliament has unanimously adopted a resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica. The resolution honours more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks who were killed by units of the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska and a paramilitary unit in the town on July 11, 1995. It also declared July 11 a day of mourning and condemned public denial of the mass killings *) Iran 'detains' UK diplomat, other foreigners for alleged spying Iran's Revolutionary Guard has detained several foreigners, including Britain's second most senior envoy in Tehran, for allegedly engaging in espionage and taking soil samples from prohibited military zones. State media reported that the foreigners had been arrested, but did not elaborate on when this happened. The UK Foreign Office denied that its diplomat was among those arrested. The accusations follow escalating tensions over a rise in the number of arrests made on foreigners in Tehran and the rapid advancement o