Penktadienį šalies orus lems jau šiauriau besisukantis ciklonas. Diena numatoma niūroka. Dangų daugiausia dengs žemi ir tankūs debesys, o pragiedruliai daugiausia bus neilgai trunkantys ir nedideli.

Oro antpuoliai miesto centre, transporto chaosas ir ramūs vaikai, kurie lauke tarp oro atakų gali praleisti tik 15 minučių – būtent toks buvo pastarasis mėnuo Ukrainos sostinėje Kyjive. Leidinys „Postimees“ skelbia išsamų ir atvirą reportažą, koks pastaruoju metu buvo gyvenimo ritmas Kyjive.

The satellite station is used in part to provide internet coverage to neighbouring Ukraine, the government says.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described the measures as "common-sense tools that do not divide but really help to integrate".

What's the smallest amount of money you would ask a friend to pay you back?

Recorded incidents of violence and harassment against passengers and rail workers showed a sharp increase in the year to March.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a critical election next month, emphasized his close ties with President Donald Trump during his speech to the United Nations on Thursday while trashing a long list of real and perceived enemies. Israel has “no greater partner than President Trump,” Netanyahu said during the U.N. General Assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders, thanking his American counterpart for “his bold leadership.” Netanyahu delivered the kind words for Trump despite growing tensions between the Israeli government and the Trump administration over the Iran war, the Gaza conflict and settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. It also comes as there are growing frustrations within some Republican circles over the U.S. relationship with Israel. Just last week, Vice President JD Vance, who privately opposed the U.S. and Israel war on Iran, stressed that the U.S. must not let its foreign policy be “subservient to the State of Israel.” And Trump — who called his Israeli counterpart “crazy” in an explosive phone call a few months ago — has not explicitly endorsed Netanyahu for reelection. Still, the shout-out to Trump was a sign of how much value Netanyahu places on the relationship with the president at a time when Israel is increasingly isolated on the global stage and many Israeli voters blame Netanyahu for it. The Israeli leader struck a defiant tone through much of the speech, delivering broadsides to everyone from European leaders to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Netanyahu berated Britain and France for leading a cohort of U.S. allies to impose trade sanctions on products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank. He painted them as hypocrites for accusing Israel of colonialism when they “invented the term.” (The Trump administration has remained unusually quiet about the sanctions decision.) Netanyahu also said the issue of Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians and their property received too much international attention and downplayed the number of deaths at the hands of settlers. He spoke directly to international leaders worried about such violence, saying, “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Many of the settlers are stalwart supporters of Netanyahu’s right-wing government. But Netanyahu, whose government has green-lit the expansion of settlements, also sought to temper his comments by saying he “won’t stand for vigilantism” by the settlers. As Netanyahu began to speak, many delegations present in the U.N. hall walked out, as has happened before in recent years amid growing outrage over Israeli actions in Gaza. He accused them of hypocrisy as well, calling them “moral cowards” and claiming that many of those countries’ leaders had privately thanked him for targeting Iran’s nuclear program. Netanyahu criticized Qatar, a wealthy but small Arab country that has sought to position itself as a mediator between Washington and Tehran in the Iran war, and Turkey, whose relationship with Israel has deteriorated in recent years. Netanyahu accused the two countries of spreading “antisemitic lies.” He also accused New York Mayor Mamdani of antisemitism — and of being “buddies” with Hamas. Mamdani, who supports Palestinian statehood and had vowed during his campaign to follow through on an International Criminal Court warrant for the Israeli leader’s arrest before backtracking, has been a repeated target of Netanyahu’s ire. Another Netanyahu target was Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa. In his Wednesday speech to the U.N. gathering, Sharaa criticized Israel for its occupation of southern Syria and said the Golan Heights would “remain a Syrian land.” Netanyahu responded Thursday that “Jews have been in the Golan Heights since the days of Moses” and encouraged the Syrian leader to pick up a Bible. Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.

UNITED NATIONS — European nations that shunned the Board of Peace when it was announced a year ago are starting to work with it on humanitarian projects in the Gaza Strip. But they aren’t happy about it. Even as the European Commission tiptoes into projects with the group created by President Donald Trump, the Board of Peace’s ambitious vision to disarm and rebuild Gaza remains largely on paper. Despite that, it’s still a political force to be reckoned with, tied to top Trump allies, and too big to ignore. So Europe is looking for ways to work with the organization without fully supporting it. “All the traditional donors are willing to work in parallel but not to transfer money to the Board of Peace,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in an interview. Norway is not a member of the EU, but it works with the bloc on donating to Palestinians. Eide explained that Norway would prefer to work with “established institutions” like the World Bank. The Board of Peace does not publish its budget or organizational chart. And although it holds an account with the World Bank, it maintains separate holdings at JPMorgan Chase. “The Board of Peace’s mechanisms will not align with our reporting regulations,” he said. The Board of Peace didn’t respond to a request for comment. The hesitation was visible at a Wednesday briefing with Board of Peace officials on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. At the event, European Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Šuica announced she’d be signing onto two projects funded by Europe in partnership with U.N. agencies and “in alignment with the priorities of the Board of Peace.” But her description of the collaboration with the board was far from laudatory. “The key is to remain pragmatic,” Šuica said. The European Commission said in a statement that “considering the massive early recovery needs in Gaza, coordination and alignment at all levels is of course necessary to deliver on the ground.” The Board of Peace was announced a year ago during the General Assembly and held its first meeting in February. The EU and most of its member states refused to join the Board of Peace, in part from concerns it could supplant the U.N. Since then, European nations have invited Board of Peace representatives to their meetings and attended Security Council briefings with the head of the board, Nickolay Mladenov. The joint projects are the first concrete step toward collaboration. The grudging embrace of the body extends even to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the organization that handles Palestinian refugees in Gaza and which Israel and the U.S. have pushed to sideline. The Board of Peace is “the one game in town,” said UNRWA’s interim head, Christian Saunders. “Everybody needs to get behind it.” Romanian Foreign Minister Oana-Silvia Țoiu was diplomatic about the role of the board in an interview. She said her country is working with the U.N. and the EU and “yes, where we see complementarity, of course, we are supporting what is happening at the Board of Peace level.” She added that she participated in a meeting with Mladenov at the U.N. on Thursday. That approach is not unanimous. A French official, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic affairs, stressed that “the U.N. should remain the primary forum for facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, resolving disputes and advancing the political process.” The Board of Peace sought, and received, endorsement by the U.N. in November last year as “a transitional administration … that will set the framework, and coordinate funding for, the redevelopment of Gaza.” But it operates independently, and critics say it is a capitulation to Trump and to Israel. “It’s a gateway to Washington at the top and the Palestinian technocrats at the bottom,” said the International Crisis Group’s Amjad Iraqi, who is in close contact with European, Arab and Palestinian officials. However, he said, “what is being decided is decided by Israel.” He pointed to ongoing Israeli restrictions on entry for heavy equipment and reconstruction equipment, which Israel says it will not permit until Hamas disarms. But the Board of Peace plan to disarm Hamas has foundered. Moreover, Israel has continued lethal strikes on what it says are Hamas targets in Gaza, albeit at a smaller scale than last year. An Arab diplomat whose country is a member of the Board of Peace said the board speaks to Israel about civilian casualties “in a private capacity. Whether this is enough or not is debatable.” Romania’s Țoiu said that for a problem of the scale of Gaza, “you need the big actors on board” including “U.S. as a core facilitator of what can happen as a pressure for disarmament of Hamas.” The Board of Peace argues that it has made significant progress on key issues. First among them is a negotiation for the nominal ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages from Gaza — an achievement Trump himself touted in his speech before the General Assembly on Tuesday. It has also trained 500 troops for the International Stabilization Force that the U.N. authorized to stabilize Gaza and ensure its demilitarization. And it says it’s building out the infrastructure needed to govern the enclave. Ali Shaath, the head of the Board of Peace’s Palestinian technocratic committee, which is set to govern Gaza, argued at Wednesday’s event that the Board of Peace is needed to bring order to a “fragmented” situation. Tens of thousands of employees of the Palestinian Authority, municipalities, the strip’s de facto government and a bevy of U.N. agencies and international NGOs are operating in the enclave, he said, and his panel would consolidate them. “We are following one principle: one authority, one law and one weapon,” he said. Mladenov has also acknowledged the tension of working amid fighting. He said at this week’s event that the board was working on a “sophisticated deconflicting mechanism” to address security challenges before they reach “the kinetic stage.” On Wednesday the Board of Peace released a list of 66 projects worth $2.45 billion, ranging from providing insulated caravans to supporting public transportation to fixing hospitals, that it expects to begin soon. The plan is to complete those six months from their start date — which wasn’t specified. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a member of the Board of Peace’s executive board, argued at the same event that “what you’ve seen is almost like the building of a really, really big startup.” Tom Warrick, who headed up postwar Iraq planning for the State Department and is in touch with European officials, said the lack of specificity is exactly what makes Europe and other potential partners nervous about the board’s plans. “This looks good on paper, but what’s missing is how do we get from here to the actual launch point of most of the projects in this plan,” Warrick said. Mladenov gave an indication at the Board of Peace event that little might move before Israel’s Oct. 27 elections. “Our discussions with Israel right now are not easy because of the elections there,” he said. He emphasized his goal was a durable peace including Hamas disarmament. “We’re not bound by a calendar or dates. We’re bound by verification. We want to make sure that this works,” he said.

Forty-nine passengers have been rescued and a search is under way for the missing.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is up two points, but that's still within the poll's margin of error.

In the first half of 2026, the sector’s export volumes fell 11.7% to hit their third-lowest level on record

Donald Trump has railed against European fines as ‘overseas extortion’

It is for the United States to choose whether to end its war in Iran as Tehran does not wish to continue fighting, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Fox News in an interview aired Thursday. Pezeshkian took a defiant stand at the UN Wednesday, for which he travelled to New York, telling the world that Iran would not "bend at the knee" to Washington Follow our liveblog for the latest updates.  

Saudi Arabia intercepted Houthi ballistic missiles on Thursday after warning several regions, including Mecca, of possible attacks. France said it would send military assets to help protect the Saudi oil terminal at Yanbu. The strikes came amid renewed fighting in Yemen that has killed dozens, according to sources cited by AFP.

President Donald Trump has welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to Washington, praising what he called their “truly great friendship” as the two leaders opened talks focused on trade, Taiwan, Iran and artificial intelligence.

South Africans in Pretoria are hoping to have cooked up a new Guinness World Record. Hundreds gathered on Thursday to fire up their grills and attempt the largest simultaneous barbecue ever recorded.