Day: February 18, 2026

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said Tuesday that the Holy See “will not participate in the Board of Peace because of [the Vatican’s] particular nature, which is evidently not that of other states,” according to the Vatican News website, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.

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Cardinal Parolin also said that “one concern is that at the international level it should above all be the U.N. that manages these crisis situations. This is one of the points on which we have insisted.”

President Trump, who chairs the Board of Peace, said on his Truth Social platform Sunday that the states that have agreed to be members will be announcing a pledge of over $5 billion toward humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Gaza, which suffered heavy bombardment during the Israeli-Hamas war.

He also mentioned that member states will commit personnel on the ground to act as an “international stabilization force” and to perform local policing duties in Gaza. The Board of Peace is set to meet in the District of Columbia on Thursday.

Countries that have said they will join the Board of Peace include Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Egypt, El Salvador, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, according to The Associated Press.

Last week, Indonesia’s army chief of staff, Gen. Maruli Simanjuntak, said the country plans to send 5,000 to 8,000 personnel to Gaza, primarily in medical and engineering units.

Hamas, the terrorist group that controls the government of the Gaza Strip, has called on the Board of Peace to intervene and stop alleged Israeli violations of the October ceasefire between the two sides.

The post Vatican declines to join Trump’s Peace Board, citing U.N. concerns​ appeared first on azeritimes.com.

Ukraine has faced repeated pressure from US President Donald Trump ‌to agree to a deal that could mean painful concessions, as Russian forces pound its power grid and slowly advance on the battlefield, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.

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As the delegations met for a second day at a hotel in ‌the Swiss city, under the mediation of US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Zelenskiy had called the first day “difficult”.

“We can state that Russia is trying to drag out negotiations that could already have reached the final stage,” he wrote on X.

Moments after his statement, the delegations broke off the talks and said they would meet again in the future, without providing a date.

Russia’s chief negotiator, former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, described the talks as “difficult, but business-like”.

Medinsky — whom Ukrainian officials have accused of engaging in history lectures rather than substantive talks — spoke with ‌the Ukrainians for nearly ‌two hours after formal talks ended, ⁠according to a representative of Kyiv’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov.

A spokesperson for Zelensky said the formal part of the talks had ​addressed territory in Ukraine’s east and the fate of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, both sticking points since the beginning of the process.

Moscow wants Ukraine to cede the roughly 20 per cent of the eastern region of Donetsk that Russian forces have been unable to conquer — something Kyiv has repeatedly rejected.

The post ‘Difficult’ Ukraine talks conclude without breakthrough​ appeared first on azeritimes.com.

Asked to comment on complaints from inside the company that not enough was being done to verify whether children under 13 were using the platform, the 41-year-old head of Meta, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp, said on Wednesday that improvements had been made, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.

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But “I always wish that we could have gotten there sooner,” he added.

Zuckerberg was the most hotly anticipated witness in the California trial, the first in a series of cases that could set legal precedent for thousands of lawsuits filed by American families against social media platforms.

The trial marked the first time the multibillionaire addressed the safety of his world-dominating platforms directly before a jury.

Zuckerberg was very reserved at first, but then he grew animated, showing signs of annoyance, shaking his head, and waving his hands as he turned towards the jury.

The 12 jurors in Los Angeles heard the increasingly testy testimony as plaintiff lawyer Mark Lanier pressed Zuckerberg on age verification and his guiding philosophy for making decisions at the vast social media company he controls.

The trial is set to last until late March, when the jury will decide whether Google-owned YouTube and Meta’s Instagram bear responsibility for the mental health problems suffered by Kaley GM, a 20-year-old California resident who has been a heavy social media user since childhood.

Kaley GM started using YouTube at age six, Instagram at nine, then TikTok and Snapchat.

Under-13s are not allowed on Instagram, and Lanier pressed Zuckerberg on the fact that Kaylee had easily signed up for the platform despite rules that were buried deep in the user agreement, which he said a child could not be expected to read.

The post Zuckerberg admits slow action on child protection in jury testimony​ appeared first on azeritimes.com.