NEWS IN BRIEF

MOSCOW (Press TV) – Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations says the number of Ukrainian refugees that have been accommodated in Russia’s Rostov Province has exceeded 40,000.

Date: 27 July 2014 - 22:36

News ID: ۳۲۱۳

The ministry’s main department for the region reported on Sunday that a total of 40,243 people, including 13,289 children, have been accommodated in the region.
It said as many as 683 people have been housed in the region’s municipalities over the past day. Moreover, 90 temporary accommodation facilities have been deployed in the region, where 5,054 people have found shelter.
More than 32,000 people have also been put up at the relatives' and friends' houses, the report added.
According to reports, the Ukrainian refugees’ life support activity involves about 3,000 people and nearly 800 machinery units.
Ukraine launched military operations in eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in mid-April to crush the pro-Russia protests there. Violence intensified in May after the two flashpoint regions held local referendums, in which their residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Ukraine.
The referendums echoed a March vote in Ukraine’s then autonomous region of Crimea that led to the integration of the Black Sea peninsula into the Russian Federation.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the ongoing military campaign in the country. Tens of thousands were also forced to escape to Russia, with the majority arriving in Russia’s Rostov Province, which borders Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.
The authorities of six Russian regions neighboring Ukraine recently declared a state of emergency due to the influx of refugees from the country's troubled areas.

KIEV (Press TV) – The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is planning to deploy drones to monitor the conflict zone in Ukraine’s volatile eastern regions, reports say.
Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency said in a report on Saturday that the security watchdog plans to provide surveillance drones for its monitoring mission in Ukraine’s east.
Citing German media, the report said the drones would need technical ability to reach the altitude of 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) in order to determine moving objects at a distance of several kilometers.
According to the Russian news agency, Swiss Foreign Minister and OSCE chairman Didier Burkhalter has agreed on the proposal with officials from Russia and Ukraine.
The move comes as the United States has accused Russia of directly shelling eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian government troops are fighting pro-Russian forces. Russia has denied the accusations, calling them a baseless "smear campaign.” Moscow has said that it is the Russian territory that has been shelled by Ukrainian forces.
Russia has reported that dozens of shells fired by Ukrainian forces in Ukraine’s volatile eastern regions have fallen on its Rostov region.
On July 13, artillery shells from Ukraine hit the Rostov area, killing a 46-year-old man and seriously injuring two others. The fatal incident prompted Moscow to warn Kiev of "irreversible consequences, for which Ukraine will bear responsibility.”
The Kiev government has denied involvement in the deadly incident and has instead blamed it on the pro-Russian forces.
Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking parts in the east have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Russia protesters and the Ukrainian army since mid-April.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the ongoing military campaign in Ukraine, which has also forced tens of thousands to escape to Russia, with the majority arriving to the Russian Rostov region.

MONROVIA (FNA)- A 33-year-old American doctor working for a relief organization in Liberia tested positive for the deadly Ebola virus.
Dr Kent Brantly, who directs one of the country's two treatment centers run by the Samaritan's Purse recognized his own symptoms and confined himself to an isolation ward, RT reported.
It was not immediately clear how the doctor contacted the disease, which has already killed at least 660 people during its latest outbreak across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - or about 60 percent of those diagnosed.