Main News of July 18

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Ukraine’s foreign ministry has summoned the acting Russian envoy over a fatal collision between Russian and Ukrainian vessels in the Sea of Azov, the foreign ministry said in a statement

 

* Odessa-born poet Ilya Kaminsky has made the shortlist of nominees for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, making him the first Ukrainian to be nominated for one of the most prestigious literary honors in the US

* As thousands of protestors gathered outside the parliament building, Greek lawmakers approved a package of austerity measures needed to secure a bailout of 6.8 billion euro (almost $9 billion)

RUSSIA

* Police in Moscow blocked off a central square near the Kremlin on Thursday afternoon, yelling into loudspeakers that the area is closed, after thousands of supporters of opposition leader Alexei Navalny pledged to turn out for unsanctioned anti-Kremlin rallies

 

* Prosecutors on Thursday asked a Russian court to temporarily release opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who earlier that day had been sentenced to five years in prison on embezzlement charge he denounced as politically motivated

* Yevgeny Urlashov, who won a rare landslide victory over the ruling United Russia party last year, is no longer mayor of Yaroslavl, according to a Thursday court ruling

* Several so-called mitzvah-mobiles, each carrying three rabbis, set out from Moscow on Thursday to reach Russian Jews in areas where, “unfortunately, they know little about Judaism,” Russia’s chief rabbi said