With polls suggesting the race is too close to call and the next government certain to be a multi-party coalition, here are the main candidates vying to lead the EU's fifth-largest economy.

NATO will replace its ageing fleet of AWACS surveillance planes, in service since the Cold War in the 1980s, with a militarized version of the Boeing 737 commercial jet, the alliance said on Wednesday, in a deal likely worth billions of euros.

Cameron's return suggested Sunak wanted to bring in a more centrist, experienced hand rather than appease the populist right of his party which backed Braverman.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office said on Saturday there was a "considerable" risk of an eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula because the size of the underground magma intrusion and the rate at which it was moving.

Francis, 86, has tried to make the Church more welcoming to the LGBT community without changing Church teachings, including one saying that same-sex attraction is not sinful but same-sex acts are.

With temperatures soaring beyond previous averages by exceptional margins, scientists say the pressure on world leaders to curb planet-heating greenhouse gas pollution has never been more urgent as they prepare to meet in Dubai for the UNCOP28 climate conference this month. 

The Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) said 85 out of 173 countries surveyed had "suffered a decline in at least one key indicator of democratic performance in the past five years".

It is no longer enough to promise, as more than 70 countries do, to be carbon neutral by 2050 or 2060. Nations must negotiate the phase-out of the main contributor to global emissions, never mentioned in the Paris Agreement: fossil fuels.

Carbon credits have been debated since their inclusion in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

"Everything is fine with him, this is absolutely another fake," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about an unsourced report by a Russian Telegram channel, picked up by some Western media, that the president had suffered a serious health episode on Sunday evening.

Peter Kyle, a senior Labour lawmaker, said his party had delivered a "political earthquake".

The world's biggest publishing trade event begins Wednesday just over a week since Hamas launched the deadliest attack in Israel's history, prompting Israel to respond with a relentless bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip. 

Mohammadi, a 51-year-old journalist and activist, has spent much of the past two decades in and out of jail for her campaign against the mandatory hijab for women and the death penalty.

The illness has long been a scourge in much of Asia and Latin America, causing an estimated 20,000 deaths each year. Rates of the disease have already risen eight-fold globally since 2000, driven largely by climate change as well as the increased movement of people and urbanization. 

We are now "pretty close" to hitting the 2015 Paris Agreement warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages, said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

As this year’s ASEAN chair, Jakarta has attempted to soothe the restless region by persuading NWSs to accede to the protocol of the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty (SEANWFZ), a pact seeking to keep the region free from nuclear weapons.

Given past form, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is also capable of a complete surprise in the Oct. 6 announcement.

As the southern hemisphere transitions into spring, the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said in a statement that Antarctic sea ice had only reached a maximum size of 16.96 million square kilometers (6.55 million square miles) this year, on September 10.

Belgium is replacing its F-16s with F-35 fighter jets and its defence ministry had said earlier the F-16s were too old for Ukraine to use in battle, though De Croo said they might still be of use, for example in training pilots.

Washington had promised the tanks to Kyiv at the beginning of the year, part of more than $43 billion in security assistance pledged by the United States since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Kim left Pyongyang for Russia on Sunday on his private train, the North's state media reported on Tuesday, accompanied by top arms industry and military officials and the foreign minister.

The Russian president is skipping this year's gathering in New Delhi, avoiding possible political opprobrium and any risk of criminal detention under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant.

Fierce storms have battered Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria following a period of extreme heat and devastating wildfires, the kind of extreme weather climate experts say is becoming more frequent because of human-induced climate change.

Young online celebrities best known for posting about video games, their dogs or their holidays to millions of followers are also dropping in unexpected plugs for gasoline stations, fuel rewards and club cards.

Hartwig Fischer, a German art historian who had led the museum since 2016, said there could have been a better response to warnings that an employee may have been stealing items and the failings "must ultimately" rest with him.

Fire crews were battling 517 wildfires that had broken out across Greece since last Friday, he said, fueled by high temperatures and in some cases gale force winds.

Denmark stepped up security earlier this month following the backlash, as did neighbouring Sweden which has also seen a spate of Quran burnings in recent months.

Russian authorities have said Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on the plane which fell from the sky northwest of Moscow on Wednesday evening, two months to the day after he led an abortive mutiny against the army top brass.

"I don't know for a fact what happened, but I'm not surprised," Biden said.

The crash comes two months after Yevgeny Prigozhin launched a short-lived rebellion -- seen as the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin's authority since he came to power.