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Two people were killed when a small aircraft registered in Germany crashed near Croatia's coastal city of Zadar, local media reported on Saturday. Croatian police said the two-seater motor glider, which can fly with a small engine or glide without one, went down in the Velebit mountains on Friday. The long, rugged mountain range runs parallel to the Adriatic coast. Authorities said the Diamond HK36 Super Dimona was en route from the Czech Republic to Zadar when it crashed. According to media reports, contact with the aircraft was lost just after 4 p.m. local time (1400 GMT/UTC). Thick fog in the crash area prevented the use of search drones, officials saidImage: Dalibor Brlek/Zoonar/picture alliance What do we know about the plane crash in Croatia? Police said the wreckage, along wit...

Ukrainian Culture Minister Tetyana Berezhna on Friday said Kyiv had imposed sanctions on the "producers and distributors" of the Russian children's cartoon series "Masha and the Bear," or "Masha i Medved" in the original language.  The step will enable Kyiv to seek to remove and demonentize the series on websites like YouTube or streaming services like Netflix in the country.  The cartoon about a mischievous young girl's unlikely friendship and adventures with a retired circus bear, loosely based on a Russian oral fairytale of the same name, launched in 2009 and quickly became one of Russia's most successful televisual exports. Masha and the Bear or Masha i Medved's YouTube channel is among the 50 most-watched in the world, with more than 54 billion views worldwide as of June 2026Image: ...

France's anti-fraud and health agencies issued a joint statement on Friday saying they were recalling more than a quarter of a million condoms that could be defective.  It said that the majority were sold online via major marketplaces by Asian vendors.  What did the government agencies say about the potentially substandard condoms?  Of the roughly 260,000 contraceptives being recalled, authorities said around 1,000 boxes, or 40,000 individual condoms, had already been sold.  "Laboratory analyses identified two non-compliant products, characterized by a risk of bursting and, in one case, the presence of perforations," authorities said.  The anti-fraud agency, the DGCCRF, and the DGS health agency said in a joint statement that the condoms lacked the required CE marking that designates ...

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Friday that it would be an opportune moment to seek to end the war with the United States, according to state media reports.  His comments, made at a medical conference, come amid mixed messages both from officials in Tehran and from US President Donald Trump on the conflict. The partial truce agreed in June remains in a seemingly ambiguous state, having expired without progress or renewal on Monday.  Tehran continues to severely limit shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and the United States is in turn trying to enforce what it refers to as a blockade of Iran's ports.  Trump this week threatened increased economic pressure on Iran. But how much further the US can turn the screws on one of the world's most heavily sanctioned countries, with whi...

A charter plane crash at a remote military radar site in western Alaska on Thursday has left all eight people on board dead, according to the United States  military. The aircraft  crashed around 12:15 pm (2015 UTC) on approach to Cape Newenham Long Range Radar Site Airport, located about 725 kilometers (450 miles) west of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, from where it had departed. Six passengers and two pilots were aboard the plane during the incident, said Clint Johnson, Alaska region chief of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Reports identified the plane as a ‌Cessna 441 operated by Anchorage-based air charter company Security Aviation. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski expressed her condolences, following news of the crash. "I've traveled extensively with Security Avi...

Bangladesh's parliament elected ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Secretary General, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, as the country's new president on Thursday. The BNP, which holds more than a two-thirds majority in parliament, secured the largely ceremonial post for Alamgir, defeating retired army officer-turned-politician Oli Ahmed of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance. The election comes after former president Mohammed Shahabuddin, a close ally of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, resigned in July citing health concerns. Who is Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir? In February, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's BNP won a landslide victory in the first election since Hasina's 2024 ouster. The party used its majority to hand the 78-year-old Alamgir the largely ceremonial presi...

North Korea fired around 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea on Thursday, South Korea's military said. Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North fired the missiles "from its Pyongyang area." Earlier, the Japanese prime minister's office and the country's Coast Guard also said they detected the suspected launch. The incident came hours after US President Donald Trump said he would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year. US-South Korea military drills shortened The latest missile launches also come as South Korea and the US continue military drills that are set to end Friday after Trump's order to significantly reduce US participation. Pyongyang has long denounced US-South Korea joint exercises as invasion rehearsals, often responding with missile launches...

Bangladesh's parliament is set to elect the country's new president on Thursday, with the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party's (BNP) Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir widely expected to win. The BNP holds more than a two-thirds majority in parliament, making it unlikely that retired army officer-turned-politician Oli Ahmed of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance will get the vote. Lawmakers are set to vote at 2 p.m. local time (0800 UTC). The election comes after former president Mohammed Shahabuddin, a close ally of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, resigned in July citing health concerns. Who is Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir? In February, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's BNP won a landslide victory in the first election since Hasina's 2024 ouster. The party is expected to use its...