Venezuela’s opposition leader Machado made three failed attempts to return to Venezuela from exile, according to her team, as interim President Delcy Rodriguez met Trump in New York.

Machado has been outside Venezuela since late last year after a period in hiding following the disputed 2024 election.

Her adviser said the attempts were among seven failed efforts to return since she secretly left the country.

Source: Reuters

📸 Polish President Karol Nawrocki gifted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a ceremonial sabre during their UNGA meeting in New York.

The gift is widely seen as reciprocating Erdogan’s personalized revolver presented to Nawrocki at the July NATO Summit in Ankara.

Türkiye's ASELSAN and ROKETSAN signed a €1.23 billion subsystem deal, the two companies jointly building Türkiye's Çelik Kubbe (Steel Dome) layered air defense system.

ASELSAN handles radars, seekers, and fire control; ROKETSAN builds the missiles.

WATCH: Argentina's President Milei danced and jumped with yeshiva students in Queens chanting "Am Yisrael Chai" after receiving a pro-Israel award during his UNGA trip.

NEW: Tigrayan forces seized Mekelle's Alula Aba Nega Airport today.

Ethiopian Airlines cancelled flights to Mekelle, Axum, and Shire.

Just two days ago, seven armed groups including the TPLF, Amhara Fano, and OLA announced an alliance to overthrow PM Abiy Ahmed.

Taking the airport gives Tigray control over its main air link to the rest of Ethiopia and signals the Pretoria framework is effectively collapsing.

Source: AFP

Diesel prices are hitting record highs globally, driving costs sharply higher across Europe.

Drivers are paying about €30 more for a 50-litre tank, adding an estimated €203 million a day in extra costs across Europe.

Source: FT

Trump has so far declined to intervene against UK-led sanctions targeting Israeli settlements in the West Bank, despite Israel asking Washington for help.

Rubio initially suggested the U.S. might respond, but two weeks later no action had been taken.

Source: The Times of Israel

Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister Prévot:

Twelve people find themselves in a forest on an island. The guide who led them there is sitting among them.

He's dead, but they don't know it yet. They are waiting for him to return.

They hear the wind, the sea, the voices around them. They know they are not alone. Yet they can barely tell where the others are.

At one point, one of the characters says: "Years and years we have been together and we have never seen each other."

That line comes back to me when I look at our world.

Netanyahu:

The Economist ranks the State of Israel — pay attention, after three years of war — as one of the three most dynamic economies in the world. It’s unbelievable.

For me, it is also divine assistance, but it is also policy — simply a policy of a free market.

Netanyahu:

Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize winner and one of the great economists of the past hundred years, wrote a letter when I began the reforms as finance minister.

He said that Israel could be like Singapore, but that it required a change in direction — away from bureaucracy and government restraints.

And he said, fortunately, there is a finance minister who understands economics and is capable of doing it.

Netanyahu:

I truly think you need a prime minister who understands economics. Otherwise we would not have achieved everything we achieved.

You need a good finance minister — and we had a good finance minister — but you really need to understand economics.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković:

Ratko Mladić was a convicted war criminal responsible for the Srebrenica genocide, the first genocide in Europe since the Holocaust.

The military and official honors accorded to Mladić in Serbia were an affront to his victims and to the judgments of international courts.

The public acclaim that accompanied the ceremony is totally incompatible with the values of a union Serbia seeks to join.

Netanyahu on AI:

I am setting a goal: within five years, we will be the third AI power.

There is the United States, there is China — not small countries — but I want Israel to become, and with God’s help it will become, the third power.

Netanyahu:

Libertarians — you will not find anyone more libertarian than me. You really won’t.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković:

The Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina are still being denied legitimate representation, including in the presidency of the country.

The solution is neither division nor domination.

It is carefully designed electoral reform that protects every citizen and restores legitimate political representation.

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker:

The United States believed for a long time that we could fight a two-front war globally.

We're kidding ourselves.

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker on U.S. strategic priorities:

Number one is the homeland.

Number two is our own hemisphere.

Number three is the Pacific.

Number four is Europe. It doesn't mean we're abandoning Europe. We're just asking Europeans to step forward and equalize.

NATO's Rutte on Iran:

You could argue that it would have been impossible to do Operation Epic Fury without having Europe as a power projection platform for the U.S.

5,000 planes have taken off from European bases in support of Epic Fury since February 28th this year.

NATO's Rutte:

Article 5 is deliberately ambiguous, so we will never exactly tell anyone when Article 5 is exactly triggered or not.

Because we don't want to make our adversaries any wiser.

But when it comes to hybrid, let me assure you, we have all the response options we need.

Some of them you will not see because they are simply not public.

NATO's Rutte on Iran:

Why was the United States necessary to take out the nuclear capability of Iran? Why is now everybody again looking at the United States when it comes to the Houthis in the Red Sea?

Because somehow the Europeans did not have enough capabilities to do it themselves. That is Europe’s backyard. It’s not the United States’ backyard.

In the future, what you get from a stronger NATO is that Europeans can take care of their own backyard.