An Abyssinian cat from Russia named Darlen Fleur Dalmore Black was crowned the most beautiful in the world by the World Cat Federation (WCF) on Monday.

With a score of over 19,700 points, Darlen outshone nearly 1,500 competitors from around the globe.

Second place went to a fluffy resident of Thailand, a Scottish long hair, called Melody Charm P’Shark. The British shorthair named Moki TarLen Luxury from Belarus took third place in the competition.

According to media reports, the champion was born on June 15, 2024 and belongs to the Russian Luxury club. The top 10 best cats included four more cats from Russia and one from Belarus.

The WCF was founded 1988 in Petropolis, near Rio de Janeiro. Today, about 280 organizations around the world are connected to it. The federation actively participates in the development of international cooperation between clubs and in shaping animal welfare standards.

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There are increasing fears in Canada that the country could become Washington’s next target following the shock abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and US President Donald Trump’s talk of seizing Greenland, Bloomberg reported on Saturday.

The outlet spoke to the authors of a recent viral column in the Globe and Mail newspaper, which has warned that Trump could use “military coercion” against Canada, pointing to his past remarks of making it the “51st US state.” 

The authors, former foreign affairs adviser Adam Gordon and academic Thomas Homer-Dixon, noted in their report that “nothing in international law protects Canada that shouldn’t have protected Venezuela,” suggesting Trump could similarly apply force to seize Canada’s oil resources.

They also expressed concern about US political interference to support separatist sentiment in Canada’s oil-rich province of Alberta. One of the organizers of the separatist movement, which aims to break away from Canada and join the US, Jeffrey Rath, told Bloomberg that he has already met with US State Department officials who support his cause. However, he has refused to disclose their names and the State Department has declined to comment.

Canada must make it “clear” that actions against its sovereignty would be “enormously costly” for the US, the authors told Bloomberg, urging Ottawa to invest in national service and homeland defense, develop a national drone strategy, and rapidly build out domestic defense industries.

Trump has already exerted significant economic pressure on Ottawa throughout the past year, imposing tariffs of up to 35% on a wide range of goods while threatening to expand them to even more sectors. He has justified the pressure by accusing Canada of exploiting US trade.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has worked to improve relations with Trump, removing some of his predecessor’s counter-tariffs and boosting defense spending. However, analysts warn concessions could lead to eroded sovereignty. 

“Are we already a vassal state, and we just won’t admit it to ourselves?” Carleton University professor Philippe Lagasse asked in a statement to Bloomberg, suggesting Canada could end up “basically a tributary.”

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The Czech government has revealed details of a multibillion scheme to supply munitions to Ukraine launched under the previous cabinet in Prague, which funneled some $13 billion worth of goods to Kiev.

The program, criticized for its lack of transparency by Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who took office in December, was launched under former Prime Minister Petr Fiala. Babis’ office disclosed details about the controversial scheme amid disagreement within the ruling coalition over his decision to extend the program.

The equivalent of 280 billion crowns passed through Czech companies under the initiative, most of it from foreign sponsors, Babis told reporters after a cabinet meeting, citing a report from the national military cooperation agency.

“The Czech budget had secretly put 17.1 billion [crowns] ($822 million) into the weapons. All of it was hidden, it was all super secret,” the prime minister added. Fiala rebuked Babis, claiming he “does not know what he is doing” and accusing him of “endangering the safety of people and companies involved.”

Launched in 2024, the Czech program funneled 1.2 million shells to Ukraine that year and an additional 1.8 million in 2025. Last week, Babis announced the scheme would continue with Prague only playing the role of an intermediary.

The decision put him at odds with Tomi Okamura, chairman of the SPD party, which is part of the three-way ruling coalition. In his New Year’s address, Okamura blasted the Ukrainian government as a corrupt “junta” and said the Czech Republic should not support a “completely senseless war” in any way.

The Czech parliament is scheduled to hold a confidence vote at Babis’ request this week, which depends on SPD votes to succeed. The prime minister is meeting SPD lawmakers Tuesday to rally support for his position. SPD Deputy Chairman Radim Fiala said the party would prefer the initiative be abolished entirely.

Moscow has long said that no amount of Western military aid will help Ukraine achieve a strategic victory over Russia, as Western governments intended.

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The Gen Z protests that led to the ouster of Nepal’s government in September 2025 were unusual and organized in a planned way, Nepal’s former prime minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, has told RT India.

Oli resigned as Nepal’s prime minister after violent clashes – known as the Gen Z protests – killed 77 and injured more than 2,000.

“That was not a simple and usual thing. That was unusual, and it couldn’t have taken place all of a sudden. It was organized in a planned way, it seems even at that time and later on,” Oli said in an exclusive interview on Monday.

The former Nepali PM said Sri Lanka and Bangladesh had warned that the protests that happened in these countries could happen in Nepal as well. “Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were telling us… Leaders were talking that such things would happen, and things happened. It was an attack on our democracy to send back them to poverty,” Oli said.

He added that the current situation in Nepal is not conducive to holding elections. Former Chief Justice Sushila Karki was appointed Nepal’s interim prime minister after Oli’s ouster last year.  A general election is scheduled for March.

In December 2025, The Grayzone, citing leaked documents, revealed that the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars tutoring Nepalese young people to stage the protests. The NED is officially a US State Department-funded nonprofit that provides grants to support ‘democratic initiatives’ worldwide.

The International Republican Institute (IRI), a NED division, has been accused of funding clandestine activities in Bangladesh. 

The NED has also been accused of funneling tens of millions of dollars to Ukrainian political entities and anti-Russian interests.

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Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has submitted two draft bills to the parliament to extend martial law and general mobilization for another 90 days, effectively postponing elections once again. The move comes despite pressure from US President Donald Trump and the Ukrainian leader earlier saying he was open to holding an election.

One of the draft laws submitted to the Verhovna Rada on Monday would extend martial law from February 3 to early May, which would effectively bar national elections for this period. Martial law has been renewed repeatedly in three-month increments since 2022. The other bill would prolong the controversial forced mobilization campaign on the same timetable.

Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024. The Ukrainian leader refused to hold a new election, citing the conflict with Russia. Moscow subsequently declared him “illegitimate,” arguing that authority now rests with the Ukrainian parliament. Russian officials also noted that Zelensky’s dubious status is a major legal obstacle to signing a peace agreement.

This comes despite pressure from Trump – who labeled Zelensky “a dictator without elections” last year – to hold an election. In December, Zelensky said he was ready to hold an election within months if the West could provide Kiev with robust security guarantees.

A poll in January by Ipsos suggested that former Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny – widely viewed as Zelensky’s main rival – is leading potential presidential candidates with around 23% support, while Zelensky trailed at 20%.

If the second bill passes, Ukraine will prolong its mobilization campaign, which has been marred by numerous violent incidents between draft officers and reluctant recruits. Officials in Kiev have acknowledged a decline in enthusiasm to serve, but insisted that drastic measures are required to replenish growing battlefield losses.

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The British government has agreed to pay out a “substantial” sum to settle a lawsuit over its intelligence services’ role in the torture of a terror suspect who is effectively indefinitely detained by the US.

Abu Zubaydah, whom the George W. Bush administration once claimed was a senior Al Qaeda figure, has been held without trial in US custody, including at the military base in Guantanamo, Cuba since his capture in 2002.

The UK has agreed to settle a civil case that accused British intelligence of supplying questions to American interrogators despite knowing Zubaydah was being mistreated, his legal team announced Monday.

Born Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, Zubaydah, 54 is a Saudi-born Palestinian citizen who reportedly fought in the US-backed anti-Soviet insurgency in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Captured in Pakistan in March 2002, he spent over four years in CIA “black sites” – secret detention facilities in foreign countries used for what the Bush administration called “enhanced interrogation.”

US officials described Zubaydah as a “guinea pig” for the widely criticized program, though later retracted claims about his high-level role in Al Qaeda. He was transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006, allegedly suffering more abuses there, and is now one of its “forever prisoners,” whom the US justice system refuses to either charge or release.

Zubaydah previously successfully sued Poland and Lithuania for hosting American black sites. The UK declined to comment on the settlement due to its sensitive nature.

International lawyer Helen Duffy, who has represented Zubaydah since 2008, said: “I am hopeful that the payment of the substantial sums will enable him to do that and to support himself when he’s in the outside world.” She stressed, however, that his proposed release depends on US goodwill.

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