Gas Explosion Kills 2
A gas explosion killed a 3-year-old child and a 54-year-old woman in an apartment building in Omsk, RIA-Novosti reported.
The child was found alive after the blast late Wednesday but died during resuscitation efforts, the report said. The woman was found dead.
Officials believe the blast resulted from a violation of the building’s gas safety rules.
(AP)

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‘New Page’ in Enclave Talks
YEREVAN, Armenia — The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet in Russia on July 17 and could open a “new page” in negotiations over breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh, the French mediator said.
The meeting will be the sixth between Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia’s Serzh Sargsyan in little over a year.
French envoy Bernard Fassier said the intensity of talks was “unprecedented” in the 15 years since the ceasefire.
“We are now at a very important stage of the negotiation process,” Fassier told a news conference Wednesday in Yerevan.
He said he hoped the meeting would “open a new page in the negotiations.”
A trio of French, Russian and U.S. mediators under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe say they are close to a breakthrough on the fate of the enclave.
(Reuters)

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Activist Jailing Denounced
 MINSK — France on Thursday denounced the jailing of a Belarussian opposition activist, saying the action ran counter to efforts by Minsk to improve its human rights record and move closer to the West.
Ambassador Mireille Musso was commenting on a one-year jail term handed down by a provincial court to Artyom Dubsky on the grounds that he had violated the terms of his probation.
“This was an unpleasant surprise for all of us. It is completely at odds with the steps taken previously and with statements that have been made,” Musso told a news conference.
(Reuters)