The representatives of the more than 30 participating countries in the security meeting on Ukraine held in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) agree on the need to reach a peace agreement that fully respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, and the creation of specific working groups on the most outstanding aspects of the ten-point proposal presented at the time by the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, to cease hostilities with Russia.

The meeting is considered the continuation of the meeting held in June in Copenhagen (Denmark) and an impulse for Saudi mediation to bring together the different positions of the participating countries on the end of the war in Ukraine, including India or China, closer to the Moscow authorities and present at the talks.

All the participants have agreed that “respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine must be at the center of any peace agreement” with a view to “restoring the supremacy of the United Nations Charter and respect for international law “, according to European sources at the meeting.

Regarding the plan presented by Zelenski, the so-called Formula for Peace, there is a consensus in Jeddah that it is necessary to create working groups on the “most outstanding aspects” of the proposal, among which “global food security, environment, the release of prisoners of war and kidnapped children, as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid”.

These working groups will be set up in the future and deliver their conclusions to the different security agencies of the participating countries, add the European sources.

Likewise, in parallel to the creation of these groups, the team of ambassadors in Ukraine of the participating countries will continue to carry out technical work to cement these proposals.

European sources highlight the role played by China during this meeting, in which it has participated “actively” and has even been favorable “to the idea of a third meeting” at the security level.

Possible summit of heads of state

This meeting could even evolve into a security summit of heads of state and government of the countries meeting in Jeddah, an idea that “is still a bit up in the air but could be considered plausible by the end of the year,” according to the sources. .

The meeting, however, is also characterized by the absence of Russia, which has been excluded from these talks and has assured on countless occasions that it will not even sit down at the table to discuss Zelensky's peace plan.

Zelensky's plan

The Ukrainian Peace Formula, it should be remembered, calls for the departure of all Russian troops from the country, including the Crimean peninsula, under Russian control since 2014 and which, according to Moscow, has been legally incorporated into its territory.. In previous responses, Russia has insisted that any peace negotiations on Ukraine must take into account “the new territorial realities” that appeared nine years ago and demands security guarantees regarding the deployment of NATO in eastern Europe.

Finally, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zajarova, indicated in a recent interview with the Russian channel RBC that “as everyone knows”, any conclusion reached in a political meeting without the presence of Russia “is meaningless and is it is nonsense”, although he has expressed his country's willingness to discuss the results of the meeting.

Ester Ramiro, the 34-year-old Spanish woman whose testimony was heard this Friday at the Via Crucis presided over by Pope Francis in Lisbon, has stated that she wanted to communicate to the young people of World Youth Day (WYD) that God came looking for her. “It's never too late to start over,” he says.

Ester transmitted her message, recorded, in the Via Crucis that gathered 800,000 people yesterday, according to the Vatican, in the Eduardo VII Park in Lisbon. “I still can not believe it. I wanted to tell a little about my story, because I was far from the Lord, then I got lost and it was all horrible and once I met God my life changed. Now I'm much happier,” he says.

As a young woman, at the age of 24, Ester had a spinal cord injury. She lived far from God and, at a party, they passed her a piece of a cake with hallucinogenic substances and, drugged, she threw herself out of the window, as a result of which she was injured for life.

“I got mad at God. I had the mentality that if you do good things, good things happen to you; if you do bad things, you have a bad time. But they tricked me and gave me that cake and that happened to me. It was unfair.”

However, as he explained in the Via Crucis video, with the injury his life took a first turn: “It was a gift. It changed my look”. He started doing sports, and complaining less. “I am more grateful to those around me, starting with my family, and worry less about the future,” she says.

Two years after the accident, Ester meets her current husband, Nacho. They go to live together, she gets pregnant and they decide to have an abortion.

In these circumstances, Ester, takes an emotional intelligence course, without any relation to anything religious.. “I meet the great love of God. The awareness that he was close to me awakens in me,” he says.

“God came to look for me completely like the good shepherd who goes to look for the lost sheep. He came looking for me and healed me. From there I get closer to Him and return to faith,” he explains.

At the end of the course, I need to confess. He enters the first parish he finds, adapted for wheelchairs. She had never cried before, because it was difficult for her to express her feelings, but she bursts into tears when she finishes.

“From then on, the sorrow and the sadness were taken away from me at once.. Guilt takes longer to fade. It was very difficult for me to forgive myself, more than even those who gave me the cake that caused my accident,” says Esther, who has a daughter named Elizabeth and married her partner through the Church.

Correspondingly, you have to draw from a 'one by one' account. We already need 100,000 operators. As of today, this year,” he said, quoted by TASS.

The official, who described unmanned aeronautics as “an interesting, new industry, a totally new sector of the economy,” said Rosaviatsia will carry out a study to determine the exact number of operators needed for each drone.

Last June, the Russian government approved a development strategy for unmanned aviation systems that provides for the gradual increase in the production of commercial drones up to one million units per year by 2035.

In addition, it is expected that by 2036 80% of unmanned aerial systems will be Russian-made.

This program, which does not mention the creation of drones for military purposes, will allow Russia to launch companies that not only assemble these aircraft but also produce their components and the materials necessary for their manufacture, and the programs for their control.

The main objective of this strategy lies in the creation of a new branch of the economy in the next six and a half years, linked to the manufacture and use of drones for civilian use.

In the military field, Russia is not restricted to the use of foreign-made military drones, much of which comes from Iran and is used in the war in Ukraine under the Russian name “Geran”.

The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, assured this Saturday that what happened to his eldest son, Nicolás Petro Burgos, charged by the Prosecutor for money laundering and illicit enrichment, is “terrible” and he hoped that later they could reconcile this crisis that has caused the biggest scandal of his Government.

“What happened to my son is terrible and very unfortunate for me.. Hopefully one day I can talk to him and forgive us,” the head of state said on Twitter.

The relationship between father and son is not one of the best and the president has been widely criticized because last Saturday, upon learning of Nicolás's arrest, he distanced himself from him and published a tweet in which he stated that “so much self-destruction” hurts him and After wishing him luck, he pointed out that he hopes “that these events forge his character and that he can reflect on his own mistakes.”

This Saturday, in an interview with Semana magazine, Nicolás Petro confirmed that last Wednesday, in the midst of the political scandal, he did not want to receive a visit from his father in the bunker of the Prosecutor's Office in Bogotá where he was detained.

“I spent some time sending him messages through other people to talk to him and I never got a response,” said Petro Burgos.

Even last March, when Daysuris Vásquez, Nicolás Petro's ex-wife, revealed that he had received illicit money for his father's campaign and had stayed with him, the president also distanced himself from his eldest son by stating that he was not the one who gave it to him. child.

“He grew up in Córdoba (…) he studied there and did his university there, law; we never really had the opportunity to live together, I didn't raise him, that's the reality,” the president said at the time in an interview with Cambio magazine. .

The Municipal Criminal Judge 74 with functions of control of guarantees ordered on Friday in a hearing in Bogotá that Petro Burgos and Vásquez respond freely, but with restrictions, to the process they face for money laundering and other crimes, a case that has dotted the Colombian government.

The president also reiterated today that his 2022 campaign “did not receive any money of an illicit nature” and that he found out about what happened “through a meeting I had with Nicolás's ex-wife in my office just a few months ago when I asked that they investigate my son”.

“As I said before, as president I will not put pressure on justice in his case, the judicial officials who intervene in his process will be respected by me,” added the head of state.

The president ends his message by saying that he hopes that his grandson “will be able to meet his father in freedom”, something that he could not do with Nicolás because he was imprisoned as a member of the guerrilla group Movement on April 19 (M-19).

“I met Nicolás at the bars of my prison. Even in the most terrible thing, you learn that all my sons and daughters, including Nicolás and myself, can with this harsh experience be better human beings,” he added.

After his separation from Vásquez, from whom he has not officially divorced, Petro Burgos began a sentimental relationship with Laura Ojeda, who is now eight months pregnant.

The Russian Air Force sent an Su-30 fighter on Saturday to intercept a US MQ-9A Reaper spy drone over the Black Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

“The crew of the Russian fighter identified the aerial target as a US Air Force MQ-9A Reaper spy drone,” the department, headed by Sergei Shoigu, said.

“After the approach of the Russian fighter, the foreign spy drone made a turn and moved away from the Russian state border.. The Russian plane returned to its base after avoiding the violation of the Russian state border,” Defense added.

According to the military command, “the flight of the Russian fighter was carried out in strict accordance with the international regulations for the use of airspace over neutral waters.”

Last March, two Russian fighters shot down an American drone over the Black Sea with their maneuvers, considering that it was a “provocation” by the United States, “by violating the limits of the temporary airspace restriction zone” established by Russia around Crimea.

More recently, in early July, for two consecutive days Russian planes “harassed” US spy drones in Syrian airspace with maneuvers that endangered the safety of these aircraft.

A group of Spanish tourists has been trapped in a hotel in the Ethiopian region of Amhara, located in the north of the country, due to clashes between state security forces and the Fano militias, a heterogeneous armed group that collaborated with Amhara troops. during the last Tigray war until their relationship deteriorated due to disagreements over the management of regional security.

Sources from the acting Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation have confirmed that the Spanish Embassy in Ethiopia is aware of the situation of the group and is “permanently in telephone contact with them”.. Likewise, it has recommended that they remain “without leaving the hotel until the situation calms down.”

According to information from the digital newspaper NIUS, the group of tourists traveled with a travel agency based in Barcelona, would be made up of 18 people, including a child under 13 years of age, and would have been trapped in the hotel since Wednesday, August 2.

The Ethiopian government declared a state of emergency in the Amhara region late on Thursday in response to months of clashes between state security forces and militias, who also denounce years of discrimination by the country's central authorities. .

Fighting has intensified in the region in recent days after militias seized control of the airport in the holy city of Lalibela, a World Heritage Site for its ancient 11th-century Coptic monasteries, according to a travel alert published. last Tuesday by the UK Foreign Office.

International embassies, such as the Spanish one, have asked citizens to refrain from traveling to the region. Along these lines, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a travel alert to Ethiopia and the Spanish Embassy in the country has recommended that all Spaniards “stay safe in hotels and homes, avoiding all travel.”

The Chinese Embassy in Moscow has called on the Russian government to investigate “the violation of the rights of Chinese citizens” who were denied entry by the Russian authorities to the country through a border crossing with Kazakhstan.

According to a statement from the Chinese diplomatic mission, the Russian authorities denied entry and canceled the visas of five Chinese tourists who were trying to enter the Eurasian country by car, according to the TASS agency.

From Beijing they denounce that the Russian border authorities detained Chinese citizens, whom they even questioned, for about four hours. Russia, for its part, argued that the visas were not in order.

“The purpose of the trip, indicated in the application for obtaining the visa, did not coincide with the actual situation, which is a violation of the relevant norms of the legislation of the Russian Federation,” the competent Russian authorities have pointed out.

Chinese diplomacy has demanded an “immediate” investigation of what happened and has also asked Russia to “take active measures and maximum efforts to eliminate the negative consequences of this incident.”. Russia regards this as an isolated case.

The prayer has been led by several young people, including a young woman with a disability.

The Pope landed this Saturday morning in Fatima, where he has flown by helicopter from Lisbon, where he is participating in World Youth Day (WYD).

This is the second visit that Francis has made to the Sanctuary, where he already made an express trip of just over 24 hours, on May 12 and 13, 2017, on the occasion of the centenary of the apparitions of the Virgin to the little shepherds.

During his words, improvised and pronounced in Spanish, Francisco focused on the figure of María, the “lady in a hurry” or “apressada” (as they would say in Portuguese) and extolled that she “is never the protagonist, she welcomes everyone and points to Jesus.”

For this reason, he invited the faithful present to keep a brief moment of prayer and reflection, to ask her in silence: “Mother, what are you pointing out to me? What is there in my life that worries you, that moves you, that are you interested?”

In the planned but not delivered speech, the pontiff also made other reflections and invited to take the “path of smallness” against “perfectionism”, while warning of the danger of becoming “disciples of fashion”.

“Friends, let us not be infected by perfectionism, let us not be fooled by mirages, let us not become disciples of fashions. Let us be passionate about real life, because we are called to be artists of existence, not experts in photographic retouching; to color the days we live in with meaning, not to varnish them with appearances”, can be read in the unpronounced speech.

Thus, Bergoglio specifies that the path to “true greatness” is not that of “success, power, wealth and worldly appearances”, but “the path of littleness” because “God always chooses the little ones, who are great for Him; choose the simple”, like “the children of Fatima”.

For this reason, he suggests moving away from the “dangerous temptation” of “perfectionism” and regrets that many young people today suffer from “the weight of not achieving it, of not doing it well, of being inadequate, even badly done”, trying to “beautify themselves by outside, to show himself in good shape” although “inside his heart screams in pain.

“Today it seems that you can only be perfect; you have to show yourself great, efficient and accomplished, and all fragility seems a fault, while the models that the image society inculcates are always resplendent and brilliant. But they are made up and, therefore, they are false,” he warns.

It also invites to pray for peace. “Now, as at the time of the apparitions, there is also war. The Virgin asked that they pray the Rosary for peace. She did not ask for it as a favor, but rather, with maternal solicitude, she indicated: “Recite the Rosary every day to achieve peace in the world and the end of the war.”. So let us unite our hearts, let us pray for peace,” he stressed.

peace in ukraine

The Bishop of Leiria-Fátima, José Ornelas, has expressed his “profound joy” for the presence of the pontiff, for the second time, in Fatima and has joined his prayer “for peace” with which, as he explained, “this Sanctuary is deeply identified, particularly in the face of the war in Ukraine”, and “in so many other sources of conflict in the world that dramatically affect the lives and futures, especially of children and young people”.

He also prayed for children and young people who are victims of “disease, poverty, hunger, conflicts, abuse, injustice and exclusion.”

The Pope has arrived at the Sanctuary of Fátima after traveling a stretch of road in the popemobile from where he has been able to greet the thousands of faithful who were waiting for him and has given his blessing to several babies who have brought him closer to the car. Subsequently, the Pope prayed before the image of the Virgin of Fatima and presented her with some flowers and a rosary.

The Portuguese Navy deactivated an explosive device that could be “extremely dangerous” on the beaches of the Troia peninsula, some 135 kilometers from Lisbon, the institution reported on Saturday.

The Portuguese Navy acted this Friday after a citizen alert and found a device used to signal emergency zones at sea that was deactivated late at night.

“Due to the confluence of various maritime and air routes, this type of artifact is found with some frequency on the Portuguese coast and requires precautions when handling it because it can be extremely dangerous,” the agency added in a statement.

The area where it was found, on the Troia peninsula, is one of the most touristy on the Portuguese coast.

Portugal extreme security these days due to the celebration of World Youth Day in Lisbon with the presence of the Pope, which has attracted a million faithful.

Chaos broke out this Friday in Union Square Park after a crowd, which the local police have estimated at more than a thousand young people, have flocked to the area attracted by the possibility of receiving video game consoles given away by two famous streamers from the United States. .

The streamers, Kai Carlo Cenat III, whose YouTube channel has more than 3.6 million followers, and Fanum, had announced that they planned to hand out PlayStation 5 consoles in the park at 4:00 p.m. (local time), the newspaper reported. The New York Times.

“Soon, the park and the surrounding streets were filled with people. They were disrupting vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The NYPD responded by calling a mobilization in response to the large crowd. As the crowd grew, so did our mobilization.. The crowd was overrun when the influencer finally made it to the park. People in the park began to commit acts of violence against the police and the public,” New York Police Department Chief Jeffrey Maddrey told CBS.

As the chaos has unfolded, a vehicle in which Cenat is believed to be traveling has been seen attempting to escape, as the crowd has begun to harass it, with some grabbing onto the sides of the vehicle as it accelerated.. At least three people have fallen to the ground as the vehicle sped away.

Cenat has been taken into police custody for questioning around 3:00 p.m. (local time) since he did not have permission for that event, as reported by CBS.

According to witnesses, at the scene people could be seen throwing water bottles, basketballs, fireworks and even a computer into the streets and a group of young people pushed riot police when they tried to enter to make arrests. .