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Romania's Government adopted on Thursday, June 16, a draft law for the purchase of 32 F-16 military aircraft from Norway. The fighters will be delivered in operating state, and the Romanian Defense Ministry plans to use them for at least ten years while preparing for the transition to 5th generation aircraft. The contract will include initial logistic support and a complementary package of goods and services provided by the US Government, according to a press release issued by the Defense Ministry. The contract is estimated at EUR 454 million without VAT.

Ru ssia’s war in Ukraine has pushed global displacement figures to record levels, the U.N. refugee agency said Thursday, calling the statistics a “tragic milestone.” Over the past decade, levels of displacement have increased every year, the United Nations noted in its global trends report — with figures currently at the highest level since record keeping began. At the end of 2021, 89.3 million people were displaced, the agency said, citing war, disasters, violence, persecution and human rights abuses as some of the factors. As of today, more than 100 million people have been forced to flee their homes — more than 1 percent of humanity. The invasion of Ukraine triggered the fastest forced-displacement crisis since World War II — which, in conjunction with other emergency situations in Afghanistan, Africa and elsewhere, “pushed the figure over the dramatic milestone,” the agency said. More than 5 million Ukrainian refugees have been recorded across Europe since Russia’s invasion. Childr...

Heavy monsoon downpours in Bangladesh’s northeastern and northern regions have stranded hundreds of thousands of people, forcing authorities to deploy the military to conduct evacuation and relief work, according to local media and official statements. The Bangladesh military’s Inter Service Public Relations office said on its website early on Saturday that soldiers were deployed as floods have devastated the northeastern districts of Sunamganj and Sylhet where thousands of homes have been inundated and electricity has been cut. In a statement, the government’s Flood Forecasting and Warning Center in Dhaka, the nation’s capital, said on Friday that water in all major rivers across the country is rising. The country has about 130 rivers. The centre said the flood situation is likely to deteriorate over the next 24 hours in the worst-hit Sunamganj and Sylhet districts in the northeastern region as well as in Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Nilphamari and Rangpur districts in northern Bangladesh. ...

The UK, the US, France, and Japan are among a slew of countries that have signed the first ever political declaration committing nations to avoid bombing and shelling populated towns and cities, a move which rights groups say will save thousands of civilian lives. Ireland presented a final draft of the declaration to the United Nations in Geneva on Friday after nearly three years of negotiations by member states and civil society organisations. The final wording - which is significantly watered down compared to initial drafts - is not legally binding. But it commits signatories to avoid using explosive weapons, like aerial bombs, rockets, artillery projectiles and missiles, in urban areas as they have such devastating effect. According to the UN more than 90 per cent of global reported civilian casualties each year are the result of the use of these weapons in populated areas. Airwairs, a UK-based monitoring group that backs the declaration and tracks the destruction caused by this glo...

The mobile school in Afghanistan, which is voluntarily taught by eight teachers, has been covering 1,200 students including boys and girls in Kandahar's remote rural areas. It brings necessary books to the children and helps them get access to proper education. Inspired by teachers of a mobile school run in the countryside of south Afghanistan's Kandahar province, nine-year-old Bashir Ahmad has recently decided to become a doctor in the future "The mobile school comes at the right time and brings necessary books to students and teachers who teach us very well," Ahmad said, adding that he can have a two-hour class every day in the square in front of his village. For Mohammad Daud, a teacher of the mobile school, after finishing his class at Ahmad's village in the morning, he has to leave for another immediately under the scorching sun. "We travel about 10 to 15 km from one village to another every day." "The mobile school operates in four villages in...

The Russian rouble and stocks gained on Thursday, as the head of the central bank said the currency would remain free-floating and that capital controls should continue to be relaxed. At 0900 GMT, the rouble was 0.2% stronger against the dollar at 56.84 and had gained 1.3% to trade at 58.99 versus the euro. Top policymakers used Russia's annual economic forum in St. Petersburg to highlight the rouble's recent strength, with concerns it could weigh on the Russian economy as it tips into recession. First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov said the rouble was overvalued and industry would be more comfortable if it fell to between 70 to 80 against the U.S. dollar, the Tass news agency reported. Central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina defended the bank's rouble strategy, telling reporters the currency should remain floating. She backed further relaxation of Moscow's capital controls - introduced following the imposition of Western sanctions in response to Moscow sending t...

Nearly 200,000 properties in England may have to be abandoned due to rising sea levels by 2050, a report says. It looks at where water will cause most damage and whether defences are technically and financially feasible. There is consensus among scientists that decades of sea level rise are inevitable and the government has said that not all properties can be saved. About a third of England's coast will be put under pressure by sea level rise, the report says. "It just won't be possible to hold the line all around the coast," says the report's author Paul Sayers, an expert on flood and coastal risks, adding that tough decisions will have to be made about what it is realistic to protect. "These are the places we are going to hold, and these are the places we're not going to hold, so we need that honest debate around how we're going to do that and support communities where they are affected." The study is published in the journal Ocean and Coastal ...

The Russian military said Wednesday that it used long-range missiles to destroy a depot in the western Lviv region of Ukraine where ammunition for NATO-supplied weapons was being stored. Those strikes came as fighting raged for the city of Sievierodonetsk in the eastern Donbas area, the key focus of Russia's offensive in recent weeks. Russia-backed separatists accused Ukrainian forces of sabotaging an evacuation of civilians from the city's besieged Azot chemical plant, where about 500 civilians and an unknown number of Ukrainian fighters are believed to be sheltering. It wasn't possible to verify that claim. A humanitarian corridor from the Azot plant had been announced a day earlier by Russia. The Ukrainian governor of Luhansk Serhiy Haidai on Wednesday refused to comment on Russian statements regarding a humanitarian corridor, but told The Associated Press that “heavy fighting in Sievierodonetsk continues today as well.” The situation in the city is getting worse, Haidai...

A Russian military official is urging Ukraine's government to give up its fight for an eastern Ukrainian city critical to Moscow's war effort. Mikhail Mizintsev, chief of Russia's National Defense Management Center, on Tuesday appealed to Ukraine to surrender as fighting continues in Severodonetsk, while also promising to allow civilians to evacuate. Mizintsev's statement comes as hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have taken refuge in the city's Azot chemical plant. Severodonetsk is seen as a potentially decisive battleground in Russia's aim to establish dominance in the eastern Ukrainian Donbas region, home to a large population of Russian speakers and Moscow-friendly separatists. Serhiy Haidai, a Ukrainian regional governor, said earlier this week that Russian forces had destroyed the last bridge out of Severodonetsk as they took control of 70 to 80 percent of the city. Mizintsev told the Russian TASS news agency that Russia promised prisoners of wa...

A daily glass of beetroot juice could reduce harmful inflammation in people with coronary heart disease, according to new research. Coronary heart disease is the most common type of heart disease, the most common cause of heart attacks and the single biggest killer of both and men and women worldwide. People with the condition have lower levels of nitric oxide, which is produced naturally by the body and is vital for good health. In addition to its role in regulating blood pressure, it has important anti-inflammatory effects. “Inflammation is vital to protect the body from injury and infection,” said Dr Asad Shabbir, clinical research fellow at Queen Mary University of London, which led the research. “However, in people with coronary heart disease persistent inflammation can exacerbate the furring of the arteries, making their condition worse and increasing their risk of a heart attack. “Our research suggests that a daily glass of beetroot juice could be one way to get inorganic nitrat...

The  WHO said Monday it was not concerned for now that the spread of monkeypox beyond the African countries where it is typically found could spark a global pandemic. Since Britain first reported a confirmed monkeypox case on May 7, nearly 400 suspected and confirmed cases have been reported to the World Health Organization in nearly two dozen countries far from the states where the virus is endemic. The UN health agency has voiced concern at this "unusual situation", but reiterated Monday that there was no reason to panic over the virus, which spreads through close contact and usually does not cause severe disease. Asked during an epidemiological briefing whether the virus, which is endemic in a range of west and central African nations, might provoke another pandemic, WHO's top monkeypox expert Rosamund Lewis acknowledged that "we don't know." But "we don't think so," she said. "At the moment, we are not concerned of a global pandemic....

The United States on Tuesday backed Taiwan's assertion that the strait separating the island from China is an international waterway, a further rebuff to Beijing's claim to exercise sovereignty over the strategic passage. The Taiwan Strait has been a frequent source of military tension since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the communists, who established the People's Republic of China. In recent years, U.S. warships, and on occasion those from allied nations such as Britain and Canada, have sailed through the strait, drawing Beijing's anger. On Monday, China's Foreign Ministry said the country "has sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait" and called it "a false claim when certain countries call the Taiwan Strait 'international waters'." Commenting on Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said in an email to Reuters: "The Taiwan S...

The Russian government has warned it is ready to “neautralise potential threats” from NATO on the border, in a veiled threat to the security alliance. The defensive alliance has been bolstering its forces in Poland, near to the border with Ukraine, as the war in Ukraine rages on. In response, Oleg Tyapkin, the head of a foreign ministry department in charge of Russian relations with Europe, said the Kremlin’s response to increasing numbers of NATO troops in Poland will be “proportionate and appropriate”. He told the Russian news agency Interfax: “A response, as always, will be proportionate and appropriate, intended to neutralise potential threats to the security of the Russian Federation.” In February, US President Joe Biden ordered the deployment of an additional 3,000 US troops to Poland to help strengthen NATO’s presence in eastern Europe. Just a month later, the UK said it was deploying a ground-based air defence system to Poland along with 100 troops. Defence Secretary Ben Walla...

The fixed-price contract for the new Air Force One that Donald Trump talked Boeing Co. into signing hasn’t just caused the $1.5 billion in cumulative losses so far that the company’s CEO has lamented. It has also created headaches for the Air Force. Under a fixed-price agreement, a company’s incentive is to “finish and minimize costs” while the Pentagon wants “to get every single thing that we said in the contract you have to do and get it done, and we are not going to pay you more for it,”  Andrew Hunter , the Air Force’s chief weapons buyer, said in an interview. “It creates this inherent conflict between the two sides.” The tensions stem from the $3.9 billion contract that then-President Trump pressured Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg to sign in 2018 requiring it to absorb added costs to modify two 747-8 airliners into new presidential jets, the elaborately outfitted and highly secure planes known as Air Force One when a president is on board. Trump’s deep inter...