HANOI, April 8 (Reuters) - U.S.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Vietnam next week, Senator Jeff Merkley told a news conference in Hanoi on Saturday, as part of Washington's efforts to move diplomatic relations with Hanoi on to a higher level this year.

One of the last holdouts of V12 engine production has been Aston Martin with its twin-turbocharged 5.2-liter unit in the DB11 and, now, as a farewell, in the V12 Vantage, after a 15-year run, according to an announcement made by the company on Wednesday. The 2023 V12 Vantage will be strictly limited to 333 units, and it's already sold out.

April 8 (Reuters) - A missile fired from Ukrainian-held territory was shot down over the Black Sea town of Feodosia in Russian-controlled Crimea, the Moscow-installed head of Crimea's administration said on Saturday.

* Russia threatened to bypass a U.N.-brokered grain deal unless obstacles to its agricultural exports were removed, while talks in Turkey agreed removing barriers was needed to extend the agreement beyond next month.

Russia forcibly annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 after a pro-Moscow president was toppled amid mass street protests.

Kyiv has vowed to recapture the Black Sea peninsula along with all other Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces.

The court heard in the early hours of that morning Williamson's phone was used to access YouTube videos including one called: 'Spoon is used to remove man's cyst' by Dr Pimple Popper and another called 'Large blackhead abstraction'.

* Russian forces have likely seized the center of the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine and are threatening a key supply route for Ukrainian forces to the west, British intelligence said.

The V12 Vantage also gets some extra goodies for its last go around the carousel. It will be the most powerful Aston Martin Vantage ever with 690 horsepower and 555 pound-feet of torque. Those figures, plus new aerodynamic body tweaks mean that this Vantage is good for 200 mph and will make the sprint to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds. An eight-speed ZF automatic transmission is the only gearbox on offer, though Aston claims it's been recalibrated to be more sporty. 

* Ukraine's First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova is due to visit India on Monday and will seek humanitarian aid and equipment to repair energy infrastructure damaged during Russia's invasion, the Hindu newspaper reported on Saturday.

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Those aero tweaks include a wider body, a big wing at the back and a new, vented hood. The overall look is pretty aggressive, befitting a car wearing the Vantage name, and Aston claims it produces 450 pounds of downforce at 200 mph, which is pretty good for a road car. The majority of the new body bits are made of carbon fiber to help cut weight. Aston also made the exhaust out of 1mm-thick stainless steel tubing to shave nearly 16 pounds off the car compared to the exhaust in the V8 Vantage.

The world used to be filled with magic and mystery and V12 engines. There's still plenty of the former two, but the latter is rapidly going the way of the thylacine, and while we get it -- it's hard to justify the cost and complexity of a big V12 engine in a world where going electric makes a lot more sense -- we're still sad to see them go. 

The V12 Astons have been since the DB11 came out, but we are genuinely looking forward to this leaner, meaner swan song of a car, and while we wish it could be had with a different gearbox, we expect it will still be a real experience to drive.

Aston has made handling a priority for the V12 car and, as such, has increased its body stiffness by using added bracing for things like the fuel tank, the strut towers and more. Spring stiffness was also increased, so don't expect this thing to ride like a DB11. Carbon-ceramic brakes are standard on the V12 Vantage, which, in addition to resisting brake fade in repeated high-speed stops, also shave around 51 pounds of unsprung weight from the car.