The stated goal of Worldcoin is to give people a form of identification that could never be stolen or duplicated. It says the way it can do this is by creating a “World ID” by scanning someone’s eyeballs through “orbs” — a device that captures an image of their irises, the colored parts of the eyes.

In exchange, people who sign up get Worldcoin cryptocurrency.

Spain’s Agency for Data Protection told Worldcoin’s parent company Tools for Humanity Corporation on Wednesday to stop collecting personal data and keep hold of all information already collected.

The agency said in a statement that it had received various complaints against the company that range from gathering the personal information of minors to not allowing for people to withdraw their consent to sharing personal data.

People have lined up at points where these orbs are placed in cities like Madrid and Barcelona in recent months. More than 360,000 people in Spain have signed up for Worldcoin, according to the most recent company data from November.

While Worldcoin argues that the data is used to create a unique, secure form of identification, privacy experts have concerns that the company may use the information in other ways, like personalized marketing.

That has led other countries to investigate Worldcoin’s operations, including France and Germany.

The Kenyan government has likewise suspended new sign-ups for Worldcoin as it investigates whether people’s information is being properly protected.

Worldcoin responded that their operations preserve privacy.

“The Spanish data protection authority (AEPD) is circumventing EU law with their actions today, which are limited to Spain and not the broader EU, and spreading inaccurate and misleading claims about our technology globally,” Jannick Preiwisch, Worldcoin’s data protection officer, said in a statement.

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They battered down the doors and entered the colonial-era palace, where the president lives and hold his daily press briefings, before they were driven off by security agents. The palace is a historic structure dating back to the 1700s, and was built on the site of the Aztec emperors’ palace.

The demonstration, like many others over the years, was called to protest the abduction and murder of 43 students a decade ago.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called the protest a provocation, and claimed the demonstrators had sledgehammers and blowtorches.

“This is a movement against us,” López Obrador said. “The plan is to create a provocation.”

But the president also attempted to downplay the seriousness of the protest, saying “The door will be fixed, it’s nothing.”

For years, the victims’ families and students at government rural teachers’ colleges have protested the 2014 disappearances. The mass disappearance remains one of Mexico’s most infamous human rights cases.

With López Obrador’s term ending next year, family members face the prospect of a tenth year of not knowing what happened to their sons but fears that the next administration will start the error-plagued investigation over from scratch yet again.

In 2014, a group of students were attacked by municipal police in the southern city of Iguala, Guerrero, who handed them over to a local drug gang that apparently killed them and burned their bodies. Since the Sept. 26 attack, only three of their remains have been identified.

After an initial coverup, last year a government truth commission concluded that local, state and federal authorities colluded with the gang to murder the students in what it called a “state crime.”

López Obrador has complained about the involvement of human rights groups, who he claimed have prevented him from speaking directly to the parents of the missing students.

The under-funded radical rural teachers’ colleges in Mexico have a decades-long tradition of violent protests. In fact, when they were abducted, the students themselves had been hijacking passenger buses which they were going to use to travel to another protest.

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President Yoon Suk Yeol’s government was in the process of suspending the licenses of about 9,000 medical interns and residents over their joint walkouts that have impacted hospitals’ capacity to provide care.

The doctors-in-training have been on strike for more than two weeks to protest a government push to admit thousands more new students to medical schools in coming years. Officials say the enrollment plan is essential to bracing for the country’s rapidly aging population, but doctors say schools can’t handle such an abrupt, steep increase in the number of students, and that would eventually undermine the quality of South Korea’s medical services.

“The collective action by the doctors is an act that betrays their responsibilities and shakes the basis of the liberalism and constitutionalism,” Yoon said in televised remarks at the start of a Cabinet meeting. “An illegal action that infringes upon the people’s right to life will be never be tolerated.”

Yoon’s government had repeatedly urged the striking doctors to return to work or face indictments and minimum three-month license suspensions. But most of the strikers missed a government-set Feb. 29 deadline for their return.

By South Korea’s medical law, doctors who defy orders to restart work can be punished by up to three years in prison or a 30-million-won (roughly $22,500) fine, as well as a up to one year’s suspension of their medical licenses. Those who receive prison sentences can be deprived of their licenses.

Starting from Monday, the Health Ministry began the administrative steps to suspend the strikers’ licenses: dispatching officials to hospitals to formally confirm their absences and sending notices to the strikers about their planned suspensions. The ministry was required to give them opportunities to respond before their suspensions take effect.

Observers say the ministry will likely end up suspending strike leaders, not the whole group of the 9,000 doctors who walked off the job — a daunting administrative task that would likely take weeks or longer.

Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo told reporters Tuesday that the government plans to file complaints against strike leaders to get them to face police investigations as well. But he said officials haven’t determined when they would do so and against whom.

The striking residents and interns represent only about 6.5% of the country’s 140,000 doctors. But in some major hospitals, they account for about 30%-40% of the total doctors and had played the role of assisting senior doctors during surgeries and dealing with inpatients while training. Their walkouts have subsequently caused hundreds of canceled surgeries and other treatments at their hospitals and burdened South Korea’s medical service.

The public is largely opposed to the doctors’ strikes, and surveys show Yoon’s approval ratings rising over his push for the medical school enrollment plan. One poll showed that a majority of South Koreans backed the enrollment plan.

Health officials have said the country’s handling of emergency and critical patients largely remains stable, with public hospitals extending working hours and military hospitals opening emergency rooms to the public. But if senior doctors joined the walkouts, South Korea’s medical service would suffer a major blow.

The Korean Medical Association, which represents doctors in South Korea, has expressed its support for the striking junior doctors, but hasn’t decided whether to take part in the walkouts.

Police were investigating allegations that five senior KMA officials incited and abetted the junior doctors’ walkouts, and said they summoned one of them Wednesday. Speaking with reporters ahead of his interrogation, Joo Sooho, a spokesperson at the KMA’s emergency committee, denied the allegations.

Currently, there’s a cap of 3,058 medical students a year. The government wants to add 2,000 more medical students starting in 2025, citing South Korea’s doctor-to-population ratio that it says is one of the lowest in the developed world.

But doctors say the plan can’t address a chronic shortage of physicians in rural areas and in essential yet low-paying specialties because newly recruited students would also want to work in the capital region and in high-paying fields like plastic surgery and dermatology.

The striking junior doctors have accused the government of ignoring their harsh conditions — working more than 80 hours per week at close to a minimum wage. But post-residency doctors are among the best-paid professionals in South Korea.

Some critics say the strikers simply worry that the added competition from more doctors would lead to lower incomes in the future.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament the government is asking lenders to accept a plan to defer payments for five years and then pay down the debts from the beginning of 2028 through 2042.

Sri Lanka declared bankruptcy in April 2022 and suspended repayments on some $83 billion in local and foreign loans amid a severe foreign exchange crisis that led to a severe shortage of essentials such as food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas, and hours-long power cuts.

“Our goal is to obtain temporary relief from debt defaults from 2023 to 2027. Subsequently, we plan to diligently work towards repaying the loans in the period from 2027 to 2042,” Wickremesinghe said.

By 2022, Sri Lanka had to repay about $6 billion in foreign debt every year, amounting to about 9.5% of GDP. The government aims to reduce debt payments to 4.5% of GDP through a negotiated debt restructuring, Wickremesinghe said.

Despite improve economic indicators and ends to the worst shortages, Sri Lankans have lost buying power due to high taxes and currency devaluation, while unemployment has remained high as industries that collapsed at the height of the crisis have not come back.

Last year, Wickremesinghe told Parliament that he is asking to reduce the loans by $17 billion.

Sri Lanka is currently under a four-year bailout program from the International Monetary Fund, through which $2.9 billion is to be disbursed in tranches after biannual reviews.

Sri Lanka has received two payments so far, after receiving promises of debt forgiveness from major creditors like India, Japan and China.

The government is currently talking to private creditors seeking a final agreement.

The worst economic crisis in Sri Lanka’s history created public unrest that drove then-President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign.

Since Wickremesinghe took over in July 2022, he has managed to restore electricity and shortages of essentials have been largely abated. Sri Lanka’s currency has strengthened, inflation has dropped from 70 percent to 5.9 percent, and interest rates have fallen to around 10 percent.

However, Wickremesinghe faces public anger over heavy taxes and the high cost of living.

Wickremesinghe said he hopes to exempt school books, equipment, health equipment and medicine from an 18 percent Value Added Tax in an effort to relieve some of that burden.

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But it still faces a dilemma that was clear from the start of the war and will ultimately determine its outcome: It can either try to annihilate Hamas, which would mean almost certain death for the estimated 100 hostages still held in Gaza, or it can cut a deal that would allow the militants to claim a historic victory.

Either outcome would be excruciating for Israelis. Either would likely seal an ignominious end for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long political career. And either might be seen as acceptable by Hamas, which valorizes martyrdom.

Netanyahu, at least in public, denies there is any such dilemma. He has vowed to destroy Hamas and recover all the hostages, either through rescue missions or cease-fire agreements, saying victory could come “in a matter of weeks.”

As long as the war rages, he can avoid early elections that polls strongly suggest would remove him from power. But it seems inevitable that at some point a choice will have to be made between the hostages and military victory.

Hamas, meanwhile, appears to be in no hurry to reach a temporary cease-fire ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins next week, or to delay an expected Israeli operation in Rafah, the southern city where half of Gaza’s population has sought refuge.

Hamas leader Yehya Sinwar, the alleged mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack against Israel, has reason to believe that as long as he holds the hostages, he can eventually end the war on his terms.

In over two decades spent inside Israeli prisons, Sinwar reportedly learned fluent Hebrew and studied Israeli society, and he identified a chink in the armor of his militarily superior adversary.

He learned that Israel cannot tolerate its people, especially soldiers, being held captive, and will go to extraordinary lengths to bring them home. Sinwar himself was among over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for a single captive soldier in 2011.

For Sinwar, the mass killings on Oct. 7 might have been a horrific sideshow to the main operation, which was to drag large numbers of hostages into a vast labyrinth of tunnels beneath Gaza, where Israel would be unable to rescue them, and where they could serve as human shields for Hamas leaders.

Once that was accomplished, he had a powerful bargaining chip that could be traded for large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, including top leaders serving life sentences, and an end to the Israeli onslaught that Hamas had anticipated.

No amount of 2,000-pound bombs could overcome the strategy’s brutal logic.

Israeli officials say the tunnels stretch for hundreds of kilometers (miles) and some are several stories underground, guarded by blast doors and booby traps. Even if Israel locates Hamas leaders, any operation would mean almost certain death for the hostages that likely surround them.

“The objectives are quite contradictory,” said Amos Harel, a longtime military correspondent for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. “Of course, you can say it will take a year to defeat Hamas, and we’re moving ahead on that, but the problem is that nobody can ensure that the hostages will remain alive.”

He added that even if Israel somehow kills Sinwar and other top leaders, others would move up the ranks and replace them, as has happened in the past.

“Israel will have a really hard time winning this,” Harel said.

Israel has successfully rescued three hostages since the start of the war, all of whom were aboveground, and Hamas says several others were killed in airstrikes or failed rescue operations. More than 100 hostages were released in a cease-fire deal in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Netanyahu says military pressure will eventually bring about the release of the roughly 100 hostages, and the remains of 30 others, still held by Hamas.

But in candid remarks in January, Gadi Eisenkot, Israel’s former top general and a member of Netanyahu’s War Cabinet, said anyone suggesting the remaining hostages could be freed without a cease-fire deal was spreading “illusions.”

It’s hard to imagine Hamas releasing its most valuable human shields for a temporary cease-fire, only to see Israel resume its attempt to annihilate the group, and Hamas has rejected the idea of its leaders surrendering and going into exile.

For Sinwar, it’s better to stay underground with the hostages and see if his bet pays off.

Netanyahu’s government is under mounting pressure from families of the hostages, who fear time is running out, and the wider public, which views the return of captives as a sacred obligation.

President Joe Biden, Israel’s most important ally, is at risk of losing re-election in November, in part because of Democratic divisions over the war. The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has sparked worldwide outrage. The war threatens to ignite other fronts across the Middle East.

There’s a Hamas proposal on the table in which the hostages come back alive.

It calls for the phased release of all of the captives in return for Israel’s gradual withdrawal from Gaza, a long-term cease-fire and reconstruction. Israel would also release hundreds of prisoners, including top Palestinian political leaders and militants convicted of killing civilians.

Hamas would almost certainly remain in control of Gaza and might even hold victory parades. With time, it could recruit new fighters, rebuild tunnels and replenish its arsenals.

It would be an extremely costly victory, with over 30,000 Palestinians killed and the total destruction of much of Gaza. Palestinians would have different opinions on whether it was all worth it.

A rare wartime poll last year found rising support for Hamas, with over 40% of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza backing the group.

That support would only grow if Hamas succeeds in lifting the longstanding blockade on Gaza, said Tahani Mustafa, senior Palestine analyst at the Crisis Group, an international think tank.

“If this is able to bring some serious concessions that can make life just marginally better, then I think not only will this bolster support for Hamas, but it could also bolster support for armed resistance more broadly.”

Netanyahu has rejected Hamas’ proposal as “delusional,” but there is no sign the militant group is backing away from its core demands.

Israel can keep fighting – for weeks, months or years. The army can kill more fighters and demolish more tunnels, while carefully avoiding areas where it thinks the hostages are held.

But at some point, Netanyahu or his successor will likely have to make one of the most agonizing decisions in the country’s history, or it will be made for them.

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The elementary school principal from Hereford in western England was shocked when she found out she had advanced colorectal cancer in 2022. But when she contacted her local hospital, she was told no one would be able to see her for three months “due to high demand and low capacity of senior doctors.”

“I’ve just been diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer, metastasized to my liver. I don’t have three months to wait,” she said, using another term for colorectal cancer. She was just 46.

Gittins had access to private health care and has since undergone surgery and chemotherapy. “I consider myself so lucky, but there are so many people who will die needlessly when more prompt treatment would help them,” she said. “And that’s not fair. Not in a country like ours.”

Gittins is among thousands of people with cancer let down by Britain’s National Health Service, a once-revered institution now widely seen to be in acute crisis due to years of underfunding and staff shortages.

Waiting times to diagnose and treat cancer across the U.K. have worsened in recent years and are near record highs — and experts say too many cancers are diagnosed too late. Experts warn the burden of cancer will grow as the country’s population ages.

Palace officials’ recent announcement that King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer has highlighted the issue. Officials didn’t say what form of cancer Charles has, only that it was discovered during a recent corrective procedure for an enlarged prostate.

The 76-year-old monarch’s decision to openly share his cancer diagnosis was widely praised, and experts said it was a powerful reminder that cancer affects 1 in 2 people in the U.K. The news triggered a “King Charles effect” — immediately boosting visits to cancer information and support websites nationwide.

But many couldn’t help compare the swift treatment Charles received, days after he was diagnosed, with how ordinary Britons fare at public hospitals.

Public health officials aim for 75% of patients with suspected cancer to receive a diagnosis within four weeks of a doctor’s urgent referral. They also say 85% of cancer patients should wait less than two months for their first cancer treatment.

But the last time all such waiting time targets were met in England was in 2015, experts say, and the delays are even worse in poorer parts of the country like Northern Ireland.

One in three patients in the U.K. are waiting more than two months to start treatment after an urgent referral for cancer assessment, according to the independent think tank Nuffield Trust. In total, 225,000 people have waited too long since 2020, Radiotherapy U.K. says.

Survival for common cancers in the U.K. consistently lags behind countries with similar universal health care systems and per capita spending on public health, a recent report by the charity Cancer Research U.K. found.

Apart from longer waits, people with cancer in the U.K. also received less chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment than countries such as Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway, another study by the charity said.

“It’s quite worrying that we treat less in the U.K. than in comparable countries. For lung cancer, for example, 28% of patients get chemo in the U.K. In Norway it’s 45%,” said Naser Turabi, director of evidence and implementation at Cancer Research U.K.

Turabi pointed to lack of investment in both equipment and specialist staff in the past 15 years, resulting in the U.K. ranking near the bottom among 36 developed countries for its number of CT and MRI scanners.

“We know we have an aging population, but there’s no specific commitment from the government to meet the demand that we know is coming,” he said. “We can’t even provide online bookings for screening appointments. The digital infrastructure is 20 years out of date.”

Kathy McAllister, a cancer survivor, is so frustrated with the NHS inefficiencies that she has retrained as a cancer awareness campaigner.

The former marketing director from Belfast, Northern Ireland, said she waited at least two months to start treatment after she was diagnosed with late-stage colorectal cancer in 2019. She added that she only managed to secure a follow-up scan after treatment because she persisted in chasing it down with hospital bosses.

“It’s just a wait at every stage,” said McAllister, 53. “You expect cancer should be such a priority, that once you see a doctor they’re going to put arms around you, you’re going to be looked after, but you’re not. You’re just another number because they’re so overwhelmed.”

Cancer care isn’t the only part of the NHS that’s in crisis. Millions struggle to book appointments with their general practitioners or dentists, hospital emergency departments are regularly overwhelmed, and record numbers of people are stuck on waiting lists for routine treatments.

The COVID-19 pandemic worsened the situation, but the NHS — a huge institution employing more than 1 million people — has long struggled to cope as public funding shrinks and life expectancy grows. Many blame the crisis on the austerity policies of successive Conservative governments, which have cut budgets in health, social welfare and education during 14 years in power.

Asked about the delays in cancer care, NHS England said more people than ever are being diagnosed at an early stage of cancer and more treatment options are available. Over the past year, nearly 3 million people received potentially lifesaving cancer checks, compared to 1.6 million a decade ago, it said in a statement.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has made cutting waiting times a key priority, has blamed an unprecedented series of doctors’ and nurses’ strikes for the lack of progress.

Tens of thousands of doctors have walked off their jobs multiple times since late 2022 to protest deteriorating conditions and demand better pay, which unions say does not keep pace with surging inflation. Last month junior doctors staged a strike for six days, the longest such disruption in NHS history.

McAllister, the cancer survivor, wants cancer care to be a focal point ahead of Britain’s general election, expected to take place this year. She’s calling on the government to draw up a cancer plan and devote as much focus and urgency to cancer as they did to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s just shocking every time cancer waiting times come out they get almost ignored. We’ve become a bit numb to those statistics,” she said. “We need people to stand up and say, ‘It isn’t good enough.’”

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A state security official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said the blast occurred in the rural township of Tumbiscatio.

Graphic photos of the scene posted on social media suggest the blast was so powerful that it blew the farmer’s truck in half and flipped it, and blew the victims’ limbs off.

It was the latest instance of what appears to be an increasing use of improvised explosive devices by drug cartels battling for control of Michoacan.

It came just days after President Andrés Manuel López Obrador acknowledged that an improvised explosive device killed at least four soldiers in what he called a “trap” likely set by a cartel in Michoacan.

The soldiers were killed Thursday on the outskirts of the city of Aguililla, Michoacan, López Obrador said Friday.

He said soldiers were inspecting a camp, likely used by cartel members, when they stepped on an anti-personnel mine set in the underbrush.

In its most recent report in August, the army said a ttacks with roadside bombs or improvised explosive devices have risen sharply. T he Defense Department said 42 soldiers, police and suspects were wounded by improvised explosive devices in the first eight months of 2023, up from 16 in all of 2022.

The army figures appeared to include only those wounded by explosive devices. Officials had previously acknowledged that at least one National Guard officer and four state police officers were killed in two separate explosive attacks in 2023.

Six car bombs have been found so far in 2023, up from one in 2022.

Overall, 556 improvised explosive devices of all types — roadside, drone-carried and car bombs — were found in Mexico between January and August 2023. A total of 2,186 have been found during the current administration, which took office in December 2018.

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Apple muzzled streaming services from telling users about payment options available through their websites, which would avoid the 30% fee charged when people pay through apps downloaded with the iOS App Store, said the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive arm and top antitrust enforcer.

“This is illegal. And it has impacted millions of European consumers who were not able to make a free choice as to where, how and at what price to buy music streaming subscriptions,” Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, said at a news conference in Brussels.

Apple — which contests the decision — behaved this way for a decade, resulting in “millions of people who have paid two, three euros more per month for their music streaming service than they would otherwise have had to pay,” she said.

It’s the culmination of a bitter, yearslong feud between Apple and Spotify over music streaming supremacy. A complaint from the Swedish streaming service five years ago triggered the investigation that led to the 1.8 billion-euro ($1.95 billion) fine.

The decision comes the same week new rules take effect to prevent tech giants from cornering digital markets.

The EU has led global efforts to crack down on Big Tech companies, including three fines for Google totaling more than 8 billion euros, charging Meta with distorting the online classified ad market and forcing Amazon to change its business practices.

Apple’s fine is so high because it includes an extra lump sum to deter it from offending again or other tech companies from carrying out similar offenses, the commission said.

It’s not the only penalty that the tech giant could face: Apple is still trying to resolve a separate EU antitrust investigation into its mobile payments service by promising to open up its tap-and-go mobile payment system to rivals.

Apple hit back at the commission and Spotify, saying it would appeal Monday’s fine.

“The decision was reached despite the Commission’s failure to uncover any credible evidence of consumer harm, and ignores the realities of a market that is thriving, competitive, and growing fast,” the company said in a statement.

It said Spotify stood to benefit from the EU’s move, asserting that the Swedish streaming giant met over 65 times with the commission during the investigation, holds a 56% share of Europe’s music streaming market and doesn’t pay Apple for using its App Store.

“Ironically, in the name of competition, today’s decision just cements the dominant position of a successful European company that is the digital music market’s runaway leader,” Apple said.

Spotify said it welcomed the EU fine, without addressing Apple’s accusations.

“This decision sends a powerful message — no company, not even a monopoly like Apple, can wield power abusively to control how other companies interact with their customers,” Spotify said in a blog post.

The commission’s investigation initially centered on two concerns. One was the iPhone maker’s practice of forcing app developers selling digital content to use its in-house payment system, which charges a 30% commission on all subscriptions.

But the EU later dropped that to focus on how Apple prevents app makers from telling their users about cheaper ways to pay for subscriptions that don’t involve going through an app.

The investigation found that Apple banned streaming services from telling users about how much subscription offers cost outside of their apps, putting links in their apps to pay for alternative subscriptions or even emailing users to tell them about different pricing options.

“As a result, millions of European music streaming users were left in the dark about all available options,” Vestager said, adding that the commission’s investigation found that just over 20% of consumers who would have signed up to Spotify’s premium service didn’t do so because of the restrictions.

The fine comes just before new EU rules are set to kick in that are aimed at preventing tech companies from dominating digital markets.

The Digital Markets Act, due to take effect Thursday, imposes a set of do’s and don’ts on “gatekeeper” companies including Apple, Meta, Google parent Alphabet, and TikTok parent ByteDance — under threat of hefty fines.

The DMA’s provisions are designed to prevent tech giants from the sort of behavior that’s at the heart of the Apple investigation. Apple has already revealed how it will comply, including allowing iPhone users in Europe to use app stores other than its own and enabling developers to offer alternative payment systems.

Vestager warned that the commission would be carefully scrutinizing how Apple follows the new rules.

“Apple will have to open its gates to its ecosystem to allow users to easily find the apps they want, pay for them in any way they want and use them on any device that they want,” she said.

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He held the same position from April 2022 to August 2023, replacing archrival Imran Khan who was kicked out of the job after a no-confidence vote. Shehbaz is the younger brother of three-time premier Nawaz Sharif.

His appointment is controversial because of parliamentary elections last month that his opponents claimed were rigged in his favor.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, the PTI, insists it did better in the poll but that electoral theft and other irregularities deprived it of a parliamentary majority.

Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League party, the PML-N, didn’t win enough seats to form a government but went into coalition with others to get a majority, clearing his path to a second premiership.

He secured 201 votes in parliament to become prime minister, defeating the PTI-backed candidate Omar Ayub, who got 92 votes.

Monday’s swearing-in ceremony was held in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. President Arif administered the oath of office administered.

Sharif pledged to perform his duties and functions with honesty and loyalty and always for the country’s independence, “integrity, stability, and for the sake of unity.”

But stability and unity are in short supply in Pakistani politics, and Sharif has a tough task of bringing lawmakers together to steer the country through challenging times.

The first two sessions of parliament have been chaotic and noisy, with the opposition shouting and jeering at the new government because of their election grievances.

Sharif is the 24th prime minister in Pakistan’s 77-year history.

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The air base is named after the small town of Kucova, 85 kilometers (52 miles) south of the capital Tirana.Officials said the new air base will serve as a modern hub of operations, for training and hosting an array of fighter jets.Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama welcomed the reactivation of the air base, which was officially closed in 2005, as “another element of security from our region of the Western Balkans, which we know well may be endangered from the neo-imperialist threats and ambitions of the Russian Federation.”After the speeches at the ceremony, two U.S. F-16 and two F-35 fighter jets from Aviano Air Base in Italy flew over while two Eurofighters landed.NATO funded the base upgrade with around 50 million euros. It included renovations to the control tower, runways, hangars and storage facilities.“The makeover of Kucova air base is a strategic investment and shows that NATO continues to strengthen its presence in the Western Balkans, an area of strategic importance to the alliance,” said NATO’s acting spokesperson, Dylan White.Rama said that Tirana also offered and was discussing with NATO a naval base in western Albania.Albania joined NATO in 2009 and is a candidate for EU membership.

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