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MOSCOW was ready to resume normal operation of embassies, even on the next day after the summit of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Joe Biden, if the US has will, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said this week.

Biden and Putin are due to meet in Geneva, Switzerland on June 16.

“If the Americans are ready to restore the situation that existed prior to this downward spiral in terms of diplomatic personnel capacity and visa issuance, which is becoming increasingly complicated. If they are ready, we will be able to return to normal already on the next day,” Ryabkov said. | Sputnik

THE EU should promote a moratorium on deep-seabed mining until its effects on the environment are better understood and can be managed, the European Parliament said this week, adding to calls for a pause on the nascent industry.

A global shift from fossil fuels to electrify the global economy is stoking demand for minerals used to make batteries. Deep-sea mining would extract cobalt, copper, nickel and manganese from potato-sized nodules which pepper the seabed at depths of 4-6km.

These rocks are particularly abundant in a region of the North Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico. | Reuters

DOZENS of Iraqis gave blood samples in Baghdad this week as the country carries out a campaign to identify hundreds of victims of the Islamic State group found in a mass grave.

The Badush prison massacre was one of the worst crimes Islamic State carried out after it seized control of a third of Iraq in a lightning offensive in 2014.

In June that year, IS fighters attacked the prison, freeing Sunnis and loading the remaining 600 mainly Shia inmates on to trucks, before driving them to a ravine and shooting them. | Sputnik