Reiterating similar remarks he made in the weeks after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 last year and triggered the current war in Gaza, President Tayyip Erdogan of NATO member Turkey stated this week that Israel is a “Zionist terrorist organization,” the Times of Israel (TOI) reports.

Amid calls from Israel’s President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the people of Lebanon to rise up against Hezbollah, the United States is seeking regional support for the election of a new Lebanese president, the Wall Street Journal has reported. 

Hungary’s rightwing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has accused the European Union’s executive of waging a “political intifada” against him and others disagreeing with its “pro-migration,” “pro-war” and “anti-family” policies.

The Bank of Russia has confirmed its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital ruble, is set for a mass rollout in the second half of 2025, Ledgerinsights reported on Wednesday, October 2.

The new mayor of Chilpancingo, a gang-controlled state capital in southern Mexico, has been brutally murdered less than one week after taking office, the Independent reports. Chilpancingo has long been plagued by feuds and the violence of two drug gangs, the Ardillos and the Tlacos.

Hungary’s fiercely anti-migration prime minister lashed out at the European Union during a tense news conference interrupted by a furious activist and politician.

Reiterating his administration’s intent to “help Israel” in its response to the Iranian regime’s October 1 ballistic missile attack on the Jewish state, US President Joe Biden said last week that American and Israeli leaders were “in discussion” about how to respond and that striking Iran’s oil facilities was not off the table, the Times of Israel responded.

Social media platform Telegram says that “due to the recent events in the Middle East, particularly in Israel, Lebanon, and Iran,” it “experienced unprecedented loads.”

Commending last year’s October 7 attack on Israel in which Iran-backed Hamas killed children, raped women, and kidnapped elderly people, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated Friday that Iran and its jihadist proxies “will not back down and Israel will not last long,” the Times of Israel (TOI) reports.

The interim findings of a new UK-based study show that the number of people in Britain who identify as atheists is greater than the number of those who say they believe in God, the Christian Post (CP) reports. Titled “Explaining Atheism,” the three-year study was launched in 2022 and is being overseen by Queen’s University Belfast with other academic institutions.