Russia

Pyotr Chekmarev, head of the agriculture ministry's crop farming department, is concerned there could be "a global scandal" if the insects strike during the finals.

"One way or another, we have learnt how to deal with locusts, but how do we not fall into a global scandal with locusts this year?" he said at an agricultural event in Moscow.

"The whole world is coming here. Football fields are green. Locusts love it where there is lots of green. How would they not come to the place where football is being played?"

The Jakarta Post reported two Ilyushin-76 strategic airlifters brought 81 personnel to Frans Kaisiepo Airport in Biak regency.

A Biak Airport spokesperson Putukade Wempy said the military personnel, who would be in Biak until Saturday, would only be in Biak.

The paper reported that two Tupolev TU-95 bombers were also coming, taking total personnel to 110.

Defending champions Germany will start against Mexico after Saturday's draw threw up some mouthwatering clashes.

Five-times winners Brazil will face Switzerland in their first Group E match with Costa Rica and Serbia making up one of the tougher-looking of the eight groups.

European champions Portugal will play Iberian neighbours Spain in their first match in Group B, while Argentina were placed in Group D with newcomers Iceland, Croatia and Nigeria.

England will face the other debut nation Panama in Group G in which Belgium are the top seeds.

The social network has previously said as many as 126 million Americans may have seen content uploaded by Russia-based agents over the past two years.

It is building a tool to let people see whether they had followed now-deleted pages made by the Russia-based Internet Research Agency.

The tool will be launched in December.

The Internet Research Agency was behind hundreds of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts and posted thousands of politically-charged messages.

Russia's weather service acknowledged it had measured pollution of ruthenium-106 at 1,000 times normal levels in the Ural Mountains.

It said there was no health risk.

The announcement appeared to confirm a report by France's nuclear safety institute which detected a cloud of radioactive pollution over Europe.

The Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) said on 9 November it had detected ruthenium-106 in France. It added that the source of contamination could have been an accident at a nuclear facility in either Russia or Kazakhstan.

Russia's weather service acknowledged it had measured pollution of ruthenium-106 at 1,000 times normal levels in the Ural Mountains.

It said there was no health risk.

The announcement appeared to confirm a report by France's nuclear safety institute which detected a cloud of radioactive pollution over Europe.

The Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) said on 9 November it had detected ruthenium-106 in France. It added that the source of contamination could have been an accident at a nuclear facility in either Russia or Kazakhstan.

In a joint statement issued after a two-day meeting in Denver, the organisations also criticised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for "continuing failure in its obligations to clean sport."

"A country's sport leaders and organisations should not be given credentials to the Olympics when they intentionally violate the rules and rob clean athletes," said the statement.

"This is especially unfair when athletes are punished when they violate the rules."

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is understood to be close to issuing what has been described as an "F1-style" fine, sum similar to the $US100 million sanction slapped on McLaren in 2007 for spying on Ferrari.

That would be imposed as an alternative to excluding Russia from February's Games in PyeongChang.

Senior anti-doping officials have told PA Sport they believe the IOC and Russia have already agreed the terms of the sanction.

The Russian foreign ministry said the mutual arrangement to grant travellers stays of up to 60 days without a visa was signed in Wellington in April.

This means Samoan passport holders can now enter more than 110 countries without a visa, which is double the number of ten years ago.

They include the European Union states but not the countries with which Samoa has the closest personal and economic ties.

RNZI reports visas are still needed for Samoans wanting to visit New Zealand, Australia, China and the United States.

He tweeted that Mr Putin "vehemently denied" interfering in the US election at their first face-to-face encounter at the G20 on Friday.

But Mr Trump's position contrasts with some of his own senior officials.

And he is facing criticism from within his party after revealing a proposal to partner with Russia on online security.

He tweeted that he and Mr Putin had discussed forming "an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking and many other negative things will be guarded and safe", prompting derision on social media and from the Republican Party.