Moscow Ready to Cooperate with US over Libya

Russia is ready to work with the United States in order to resolve the crisis in Libya, said Russia's ambassador to Libya. (Reuters)
Russia is ready to work with the United States in order to resolve the crisis in Libya, said Russia's ambassador to Libya. (Reuters)
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Moscow Ready to Cooperate with US over Libya

Russia is ready to work with the United States in order to resolve the crisis in Libya, said Russia's ambassador to Libya. (Reuters)
Russia is ready to work with the United States in order to resolve the crisis in Libya, said Russia's ambassador to Libya. (Reuters)

Russia is ready to work with the United States in order to resolve the crisis in Libya, said Russia's ambassador to Libya, reported the RIA news agency on Friday.

Ivan Molotkov was also cited as saying that Moscow was ready to initiate the lifting of an international arms embargo on Libya, but that was something he said could only be done once the North African country had a united army.

Later on Friday, Germany earmarked 18 million euros ($21.3 million) in financial support to expand surveillance along the Libyan-Tunisian border.

Tunisia stepped up security measures along the 300-mile border in 2015 following attacks by extremists believed to have received training in Libya.

Germany's funds will be used to create permanent surveillance infrastructure and add to mobile observation equipment worth 16 million euros Berlin provided last year.

The project is being managed by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency.



WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.