Ukrainos prezidentas Volodymyras Zelenskis patvirtino 40 dienų trukmės Ukrainos saugumo tarnybos operaciją, kurios tikslas – daryti spaudimą Rusijai ir paskatinti ją nutraukti karą.

Ketvirtadienį, birželio 25 dieną, Rusijos okupacinės pajėgos balistinėmis raketomis atakavo Kyjivą. Vietos gyventojai pranešė girdėję sprogimus.

Temperatures in Germany could hit 40C in some areas while French officials say deaths linked to the heat are being seen among young people.

Ukraine's Volodmyr Zelensky skips major conference aimed at rebuilding his country after being stripped of a Polish state honour.

The airline had typically charged adults a fee of £8 each way to sit with their young children.

Signs that traffic through the key Strait of Hormuz shipping route is gradually resuming has helped to push the oil price down.

Just over a year after Romania’s moderate President Nicușor Dan won power in a tense showdown with the far right, he is facing his most serious test yet — trying to broker a deal between rival parties to form a stable government.  Romania’s last coalition fell apart in April, and Dan’s first two nominations for prime minister failed to secure enough party support to lead a new administration. He now has one more chance to nominate a new prime minister and get the candidate approved in a parliamentary vote before the option of a snap election comes into play.  Dan will be reluctant to trigger a new general election, as his arch rivals on the far right — the Alliance for the Union of Romanians party — have a strong lead in the polls.  But the risk in refusing to call an election is that the president’s opponents in AUR and other parties are already threatening to try and impeach him — an option some believe will gain broader support the longer the crisis drags on.  Meanwhile, for the country of 19 million on the EU’s eastern border, time is running out. Bucharest is under pressure to reduce its high budget deficit and meet key targets for economic reforms by the end of August to secure around €11 billion in EU funding.  Credit rating agencies are also watching, amid fears that the political uncertainty could trigger a deeply damaging downgrade to the country’s status.  Adding to the pressure is parliament’s scheduled summer recess, meaning that if there is no deal by the end of June, analysts say the current caretaker government of outgoing Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan will likely continue governing until the fall.  “We are now at the beginning of a constitutional crisis,” said Cristian Pîrvulescu of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest. Under the constitution, some ministers currently in post “do not have the right to be ministers” because the interim government’s term is not supposed to last beyond 45 days, a deadline that has already expired.  Talks between the political parties in Romania continued on Thursday to agree on a minority government. The negotiations ended after two hours, local media reported, but there was no announcement of a deal.  Dan is due to meet party leaders again on Friday, but he won’t propose a new prime minister unless they have agreed on a deal for forming a minority government.  Radu Magdin, a political analyst, said he believed a snap election is not a “credible” scenario because Romania has never held one since the fall of Communism in 1989.  “We are speed-dating in terms of presidential consultations with the parties,” said Magdin. He said the choice was between one of two solutions — either there would be a minority government formed by the social-democrat PSD, whose members this week proposed their leader, Sorin Grindeanu, for prime minister, or a minority government made up of the outgoing prime minister’s Liberals, along with other center-right and liberal parties.  Now, a third option is also being discussed, which would involve a “rotation” between a single-party PSD minority government and the proposed center-right-liberal minority coalition until the next election due in 2028. The PSD had pulled out of Bolojan’s coalition in April and teamed up with the far-right AUR — which is led by Dan’s former rival for the presidency, George Simion — to back a no-confidence motion. The party did not like Bolojan’s severe deficit-reduction policies, which impacted the areas it represents. 

EU member countries agreed on Thursday to impose visa restrictions on Somali citizens over the country’s failure to readmit its nationals staying in the EU illegally. The move comes amid concerns about an uptick in the number of migrants arriving from Somalia, with ministers worrying that just a small share of unsuccessful asylum-seekers end up leaving the EU. “Countries of origin must fulfill their obligations — otherwise, there can be consequences,” said EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner. “Today’s decision means more engagement and determination for better cooperation in readmission.” The new restrictions indefinitely bar multiple-entry visas, reimpose visa fees for diplomats and extend visa-processing times to 45 days. First proposed by Brunner, the sanctions are not the EU’s first attempt at compelling countries to cooperate on migrant readmission. Ministers imposed similar measures on Gambia in 2021 and on Ethiopia in 2024. The Ethiopian visa restrictions were lifted in late May after member countries said “cooperation has improved substantially” on readmission. EU member countries have been rolling out a major overhaul of migration policy in order to increase control over who enters the bloc, including by negotiating new rules that will allow sending rejected asylum seekers to return hubs outside the bloc.  Over half of the EU’s 27 members this month said they want swift action to establish the centers, in a letter seen by POLITICO. The missive was organized by the Danish and Italian governments and signed by 19 leaders. The European Parliament also passed legislation last week to facilitate the deportation of migrants staying in the EU illegally.

Andreas Krieg said Iran possesses sufficient geographic and military leverage in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Venezuelan government has loosened restrictions on social media as residents search for missing loved ones.

‘London is cooking’, says UN secretary-general, as temperatures reach a new record for June

Jarosław Kaczyński deepens historical row with Kyiv

François Picard is pleased to welcome Eric Klinenberg, Professor of Sociology at NYU and Author of "Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago". He challenges one of the dominant assumptions surrounding extreme heat: that technological adaptation alone can protect societies from climate change. Drawing on his landmark study of Chicago's deadly 1995 heatwave, he argues that mortality during extreme heat is shaped as much by the strength of social ties as by meteorological conditions.

The deadly heatwave sweeping France has once again exposed the structural problems of the country’s chronically overcrowded prisons, with groups of three or four detainees crammed into airless cells built to hold a lone prisoner. Analysts and prison staff alike have criticised a penal system that continues to see mass incarceration as the main means of cracking down on crime.

The Nigerian Senate on Wednesday approved a bill to allow states to have their own police forces, paving the way for a major reform that would reshape the policing structure of the conflict-racked nation.

The three suspects appeared in a Johannesburg court on Thursday for the mass shooting in which 13 people died and 14 others were injured.