NATO flexed its muscles in the North Sea this week in a display of military might, as Russia allegedly tested the alliance's defences on its eastern flank.

The UN Security Council announced it would hold an emergency meeting Friday to discuss discuss violations of Poland's airspace, a day after Warsaw accused Moscow of carrying out a drone raid on its territory.

The intrusion of Russian drones into Poland -- whether deliberate, as Ukraine's European allies contend, or accidental -- is a test of NATO's readiness and resolve, experts say.

The SCO comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus -- with 16 more countries affiliated as observers

US President Donald Trump told Russia on Monday to end its Ukraine war within 50 days or face massive new economic sanctions as he laid out plans for new infusions of weaponry for Kyiv via NATO.

The Hague, Netherlands - NATO leaders are set to sign off Wednesday at their Hague summit on a defence spending pledge to satisfy US President Donald Trump's demand for a headline figure of five percent of GDP. Here are the details of what NATO is signing up to: Five percent?...

From meeting his spending demand to limiting the participation of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, everything is being done to try to avoid the chances of a damaging confrontation with the volatile leader.

Brussels, Belgium - Ukraine's "creativity", including its massive "Spider's web" drone attack deep inside Russia, holds profound lessons for Western militaries, the top NATO commander overseeing battlefield innovation told AFP. "What the Ukrainians did in Russia was a Trojan horse -- and the trojan horse was thousands of years ago,"...

Trump also said he would speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO officials, expressing hope that a "ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war... will end".

Leeuwarden, Netherlands - Fighter jets from the United States, France, Finland and Germany roar into the skies from a Dutch base as part of NATO's biggest air exercise this year. The aim: to practice stopping -- and then defeating -- an enemy attack against the alliance as Russia's war in Ukraine...

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said the leaders of a coalition of Ukraine backers would meet again in Paris next week, as it seeks to finalise plans to secure a potential truce in the war with Russia

In his first formal television interview -- and just six weeks before he takes office -- Trump again signaled that US support for Ukraine will scale back, saying he will "probably" cut the aid helping Kyiv repel the Russian invasion. Trump also said he would "very quickly" look at pardons...

Paris, France -- Iran's powerful allies on Monday mourned the death of its President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, while regional groups hailed him as a supporter of the Palestinian cause. Russia and China called the deceased leader a "friend", while Iran's arch-foes the United States and Israel had yet...

Istanbul, Turkey - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with US counterpart Joe Biden at the White House on May 9, a Turkish official told AFP on Friday. It would be the first White House meeting between the two leaders. The Biden administration in January approved $23 billion in F-16...

Baku, Azerbaijan--NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Sunday stressed the need to fight global warming, and called climate change a "crisis multiplier" with implications for global security. He made the remarks during a press conference in Baku along with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, whose energy-rich country is set to host the...

Istanbul, Turkey - Twenty-two migrants including seven children have drowned after a boat capsized off the Turkish coast, local officials said on Friday. Two people were rescued by the Turkish coastguard and another two managed to make it out of the water on their own, officials said. The victims' nationalities were...

NATO member Turkey has sought to maintain good relations with Moscow and Kyiv throughout the two-year war, with Erdogan pitching himself as a key go-between and possible peace-maker.

Facing graft allegations, divisive remarks on NATO and Islam, and widespread protests, his presidency underscores challenges of governing in today's complex geopolitical landscape.

Abu Dhabi, UAE -- EDGE, an advanced technology and defense groups, and Fincantieri, one of the largest shipbuilding companies in the world, have agreed to create a joint venture (JV) to capitalize on global shipbuilding opportunities with a focus on the manufacturing of a broad range of sophisticated naval vessels....

Turkey and Egypt cut ties in 2013 after Sisi, then Egypt's defense minister, ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, an ally of Turkey and part of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. At the time, Erdogan said he would never speak to "anyone" like Sisi, who in 2014 became president of the Arab...

"The current military-security situation heralds what is likely to be a more dangerous decade, characterized by the brazen application by some of military power to pursue claims," the report said.

Ahead of a key meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels and the second anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine war, Jens Stoltenberg insisted that "we need to reconstitute and expand our industrial base faster, to increase deliveries to Ukraine and refill our own stocks." "This means shifting from slow peacetime to...

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has managed to maintain trade and political relations with both Ukraine and Russia, allowing Russia to avoid Western sanctions while selling weapons to Ukraine. The last meeting between Putin and Erdogan was in September 2023 in Sochi, but they frequently talk by phone.

Canada will now require that Turkish importers provide assurances about the weapons' use as well as a government statement "clearly indicating whether the items will be re-exported or transferred to a non-NATO country." The move comes less than a week after Turkey's parliament ratified Sweden's membership in the NATO defense...

The Western military alliance has said some 90,000 troops will take part in the months-long Steadfast Defender 24 exercise designed to test its defenses in the face of Russia's war on Ukraine. "The alliance will demonstrate its ability to reinforce the Euro-Atlantic area via trans-Atlantic movement of forces from North...

The latest deals -- signed with French firm Nexter and Germany's Junghans Microtec -- are estimated by officials to cover around 220,000 shells and deliveries to NATO members will start at the end of 2025.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has turned into one of the Muslim world's harshest critics of the scale of death and destruction happening in Gaza -- and of Washington's support for Israel. The US State Department on Friday announced $10 million rewards for information about five alleged Hamas foreign operatives...

"My country, always at the request of the Iraqi authorities, will support the unity, sovereignty and stability of Iraq," said Sanchez during a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani. Spain has deployed more than 300 soldiers as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition and NATO's mission in...

Sweden and Finland bids earned approval from all NATO members except Turkey and Hungary. They remain the only NATO members left to ratify Sweden's bid 19 months after it applied for membership. Sweden and Finland dropped decades of military non-alignment and sought to join the organisation after Russia invaded Ukraine...

Speaking to Kathimerini on Wednesday, the Turkish leader said communication channels with Greece had been "revived" and that he looked forward to signing a declaration of bilateral friendship with Greece on Thursday. Thursday's talks are expected to also discuss the Israel-Hamas war, where Erdogan has shown no sign of abandoning...

Moscow's all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022 provided Europe with a wake-up call that it needed to pump more into defense to be able to confront the threat of its bellicose eastern neighbor.

NATO's other 29 allies, outside of Turkey and Hungary, had hoped to formally welcome Sweden into the alliance at the meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels.Sweden and Nordic neighbor Finland had dropped their long-standing policies of non-alignment and applied to join the US-led military alliance in the wake of Russia's...

Israel and Turkey -- an overwhelmingly Muslim nation that forms the bulwark of NATO defenses on the edge of the Middle East -- had only just agreed to reappoint ambassadors last year. But their relations unraveled as Erdogan began to pick up the pace and venom of his attacks on...

Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members yet to ratify Sweden's membership request, which came after Stockholm dropped its long-standing policy of non-alignment last year after Russia launched its war on Ukraine. Erdogan agreed at a NATO summit in Vilnius in July to put the ratification of Sweden's membership...

A branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) -- listed as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies -- claimed responsibility for the first bombing to hit Ankara since 2016.

Tripoli, Libya - A Rome-bound aircraft departed on Saturday from Libya's capital, restarting flights to Italy after a nearly decade-long suspension due to an EU ban, authorities in Tripoli said. The European Union in 2014 halted flights operated by Libyan airlines and banned them from entering member states' airspace, as the...

Benghazi, Libya - Libya's prosecutor general has ordered the arrest of four more officials, bringing to 12 the number held as part of an inquiry into this month's flood that killed thousands. Flooding caused by hurricane-strength Storm Daniel tore through eastern Libya on September 10, leaving at least 3,893 people dead...

New Delhi, India - Army chiefs and senior officers from 30 countries including the United States met in India on Tuesday to discuss threats facing the Asia-Pacific region, in the face of concern at an increasingly assertive China. US Army chief Randy George said the region was "critically important", speaking to reporters...

The officials are suspected of "bad management" and negligence, among other offences, a statement from the prosecutor general's office said, adding that seven of them served currently or previously in offices responsible for water resources and dam management. "The mistakes that they made" and their "negligence in the matter of...

Benghazi, Libya - Libya's flood-devastated port city of Derna will host an international conference next month to aid reconstruction efforts, authorities in the east of the divided country said. There was no immediate reaction from the internationally recognized government in Tripoli nor any details on how the rival administration would accommodate...

Sweden has seen a series of burnings of the Islamic holy book, with the government voicing condemnation but saying it cannot stop acts protected under laws on free expression. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- who has put pressure for months on Sweden over its welcome to Kurdish activists Turkey...

Istanbul, Turkey - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday accused the European Union of pulling away from Turkey, whose efforts to join the bloc have stalled amid criticism of Ankara's efforts to address democracy and rule of law concerns. Erdogan secured a pledge from Brussels to resurrect the membership talks first...

Putin first raised the idea of creating "a gas hub in Turkey for supplies to other countries" during talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Kazakh capital Astana last October. Erdogan then instructed his government to start immediate preparations for "an international distribution center" in Turkey.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-- The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) intends to deepen the process of dialogue with the international community in order to achieve achieve global security and stability, and resolve all conflicts through peaceful means. This was stated by the GCC Secretary General Jassem Mohamed Al-Budaiwi while participating in the...

"At least 150 people were killed as a result of flooding and torrential rains left by storm Daniel in Derna, the Jabal al-Akhdar region and the suburbs of Al-Marj," Mohamed Massoud, a spokesman for the Benghazi-based administration in Libya, said. "This is besides the massive material damage that struck public...

EU chief Charles Michel said last month that the bloc should get ready to admit new members from eastern Europe and the Balkans by 2030.

Hungary has still not voted to approve the Nordic country's entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, having aligned itself with Turkey which had long blocked Sweden's membership before lifting its veto last month. Both countries' parliaments are currently on holiday. "We can come back to the issue at the...

Libya's central bank announced that its two rival branches in the west and east are reuniting after nearly a decade apart. The North African country is currently split between Abdelhamid Dbeibah's UN-backed government in the west and another in the east backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

Twelve years after conflict broke out when President Bashar al-Assad repressed peaceful pro-democracy protests, Syrians are still trying to escape a war that has killed more than 500,000 people. At least 141 Syrians were among up to 750 migrants thought to have been on a trawler that set off from...

"We are seeing consistent movement toward the emergence of a multipolar world order. Most countries are prepared to stand up for their sovereignty, national interests, traditions, culture, and way of life," he adds, underscoring the fact that new centers of economic and political authority are gaining in strength.