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UNITED NATIONS, United States — The United Nations Security Council on Monday adopted a US-drafted resolution supporting a ceasefire plan in Gaza, as Washington leads an intense diplomatic campaign to push Hamas to accept the proposal.

The text, passed with 14 votes in favor and Russia abstaining, "welcomes" the truce and hostage release proposal announced on May 31 by President Joe Biden, and urges "parties to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition.

The resolution says Israel has accepted the truce plan, and "calls upon Hamas to also accept it."

Hamas said Monday that it "welcomes" the vote.

The United States, a staunch ally of Israel, has been widely criticized for having blocked several previous UN draft resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

But Biden late last month launched a new US effort to secure a truce and hostage release.

"Today we voted for peace," US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after the UN session.

"Today this Council sent a clear message to Hamas: accept the ceasefire deal on the table. Israel has already agreed to this deal and the fighting could stop today if Hamas would do the same."

However the deal remains uncertain as Hamas officials have insisted that any ceasefire agreement must guarantee a permanent end to the war -- a demand Israel has firmly rejected, vowing to destroy Hamas and free the remaining captives.

Under the proposal, Israel would withdraw from Gaza population centers and Hamas would free the hostages. The ceasefire would last an initial six weeks, with it extended as negotiators seek a permanent end to hostilities.

Following two resolutions focused on humanitarian aid, the Security Council finally at the end of March demanded an "immediate ceasefire" for the duration of Ramadan, after the United States abstained from the vote.

The first phase of the truce would see an "immediate, full and complete ceasefire," the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and the "withdrawal of Israeli forces from the populated areas in Gaza."

This would also allow the "safe and effective distribution of humanitarian assistance at scale throughout the Gaza Strip to all Palestinian civilians who need it."

NEW DELHI — India’s heatwave is the longest ever to hit the country, the government’s top weather expert said on Monday as he warned people will face increasingly oppressive temperatures.

Parts of northern India have been gripped by a heatwave since mid-May, with temperatures soaring over 45ºC.

“This has been the longest spell because it has been experienced for about 24 days in different parts of the country,” the head of India’s Meteorological Department (IMD), Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, said in an interview with the Indian Express daily.

The mercury is expected to fall as the annual monsoon rains move north this month, but Mohapatra cautioned worse will follow.

“Heatwaves will be more frequent, durable and intense, if precautionary or preventive measures are not taken,” he said. 

India is the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases but has committed to achieve a net zero emissions economy by 2070 — two decades after most of the industrialised West.

For now, it is overwhelmingly reliant on coal for power generation.

“Human activities, increasing population, industrialisation and transport mechanisms are leading to increased concentration of carbon monoxide, methane and chlorocarbons,” Mohapatra said.

“We are endangering not only ourselves, but also our future generations.” 

Scientific research shows climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.

The latest heatwave has seen temperatures in New Delhi match the capital’s previous record high: 49.2ºC clocked in 2022.

As people sought relief from the scorching temperatures, the electricity grid groaned under a record peak power demand of 8,302 megawatts.

On May 29, an automatic weather station in the Delhi suburb of Mungeshpur recorded a high of 52.9ºC, but the temperature was the result of a faulty sensor.

Elsewhere in Delhi, 17 other city stations hit a maximum of 49ºC the same day.

“We constituted an expert committee, which observed readings for the next two days and found there were problems with the sensor,” Mohapatra said.

While the IMB had raised its concerns about the recording within hours, Mohapatra confirmed for the first time that the sensor was faulty.

“We inspect the AWS [automatic weather stations] every six months,” he said. 

“But in between a bird or a monkey can disturb it”.

NEW DELHI — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take the oath of office on Sunday for a third term in power alongside coalition allies after his party failed to win a parliamentary majority.

Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 240 seats in this year’s poll, 32 short of a majority in the 543-member lower house — its worst showing in a decade.

It has left the BJP reliant on a motley assortment of minor parties to govern, with the larger ones demanding hefty concessions in exchange for their support.

Details of Modi’s cabinet have not yet been released despite days of horse-trading since results were released on Tuesday.

With the 15-member coalition, National Democratic Alliance, the government will wield 293 seats.

Here are the key partners Modi will work with during his third term in office:

Chandrababu Naidu: From jail to king maker 

Veteran politician and three-time state chief minister Chandrababu Naidu was jailed for two months last year, accused of misappropriating $44.5 million in public funds meant for unemployed youth.

Naidu denies the charges and was bailed on health grounds last October, but the criminal case against him continues.

The 74-year-old is leader of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which dominates politics in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh and is the largest BJP ally in the next parliament with 16 seats.

Naidu began his political career with Congress, the biggest opposition party to the BJP, and is known as a shrewd politician and a hard bargainer.

He has said Modi is the “right leader for the right time”, but it is not clear whether he will get the senior ministry post he is looking for.

“He will not have to beg for it anymore. He will take it,” political scientist Ramu Manivannan of the University of Denver told AFP.

Nitish Kumar: Fair weather friend 

Nitish Kumar, 73, is chief minister of eastern Bihar state and his Janata Dal (United) party is the BJP’s second-biggest ally with 12 seats in the next parliament.

Kumar has a reputation for mercurial politicking, frequently changing his allegiance to and from the BJP to suit his interests.

He was one of the founding members of the opposition alliance that competed against Modi in this year’s election — but switched sides to support Modi just weeks before the vote began.

He was seen this week bending down to touch Modi’s feet in a traditional gesture of respect.

Kumar has served as a minister in prior Indian governments and is believed to want a senior ministerial post, with media reports suggesting he demanded several Cabinet posts in return for support.

“Modi will have to accommodate the point of view of major partners who have done well in this election,” Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, the author of a Modi biography, told AFP.

Shiv Sena: Ideological bedfellows 

The Shiv Sena was founded in the 1960s in Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, predating the BJP’s emergence by several decades but sharing its Hindu-first political agenda.

The party split in two last year after an ugly and byzantine political feud over the spoils of political office in Maharashtra state, its home base.

A faction led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and supporting Modi’s party won seven seats in this year’s election.

With the TDP, Kumar’s party and Shiv Sena, Modi has a narrow three-seat majority to govern in the next parliament.

In addition, 11 other smaller parties are allied to the BJP — including several with just a single parliamentary seat — to take the government 21 seats above the majority line.

LAS VEGAS — Thousands of Donald Trump supporters rallied in baking heat on Sunday to cheer on the Republican presidential candidate in Nevada, a key battleground state for the US election in November.

“It’s not too hot out here, right?” the 77-year-old told a cheering crowd, adding, “if you start going down, we have people. They’ll pick you up right away. They’ll throw water”.

The rally in Las Vegas’s Sunset Park will gauge the impact of Trump being found guilty in May of falsifying business records to avoid an alleged sexual encounter with a porn star hindering his 2016 presidential campaign.

But for his most loyal followers, the ruling only strengthened Trump’s position against President Joe Biden.

“I don’t care about what happened to him in the trial... it doesn’t change my mind about him at all,” Lindsay Elliott, who came to the event with her family, told AFP.

“I think it’s going to help him. I think that the American people are done with this crap,” the 40-year-old added.

Her daughter Mackenzie, 19, agreed: “It sucks what happened but I think it’s just going to make him stronger and make voters more encouraged to vote [for him].”

At 10:00 am (17:00 GMT), as the thermometer already read 34ºC, people wearing the traditional red of the Republican Party were already queueing to hear Trump speak at midday, when the mercury soared to triple digits.

Vendors sold t-shirts reading “I’m voting for the convicted felon” — alluding to Trump’s verdict — along the mile-long line.

The Vegas event was the first major outdoor campaign rally since Trump’s conviction — and it was the first attended by Shay Chan, 25, who found himself motivated by the New York court ruling.

“It’s very disheartening to see America is turning in this direction,” Chan told AFP. “If it can happen to Trump, it can happen to anyone else, right?”

Others came to show their support even if they could not vote, such as Karen Hall — a Chilean who lives in the United States but is not a citizen. She said illegal migration is an important issue for her.

“I’m an immigrant and I had to wait years to get my visa and arrive legally, and it bothers me that so many immigrants arrive illegally and pass through like it’s nothing. That bothers me a lot, that’s why I support president Trump,” she said.

Beth Matthews, wearing a Trump t-shirt, said she was only buoyed by his criminal conviction.

“I contributed right away to the campaign as soon as they came out” with verdict, she said, adding she was happy with “a lot of people” attending Sunday’s rally.

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Voting for the EU's next parliament entered its final stretch Sunday for millions of people, from Vilnius to Madrid, with early exit polls pointing to far-right gains at a pivotal time for the bloc.

Twenty-one of the bloc's 27 countries, including powerhouses France and Germany, were voting on the election's biggest day to help shape the European Union's direction over the next five years.

Preliminary results are due late Sunday, with exit polls putting far-right parties first in Austria and second in Germany — two of a string of countries where the anti-immigrant vote has been surging.

"Right now we are living in a scenario of uncertainty," Jaime Bajo, a sports centre operator, said as he cast his vote in Madrid.

"I can understand that people feel fear and vote with a hard mindset," said the 40-year-old, who predicted a "rise of extremist forces" in Europe.

The election comes as the continent is confronted with Russia's war in Ukraine, global trade tensions marked by US-China rivalry, a climate emergency and the prospect of a disruptive new Donald Trump presidency.

"In the current world situation, where everyone is trying to isolate each other, it's important to keep standing up for peace and democracy," said one Berlin voter, Tanja Reith, 52.

More than 360 million people were eligible to vote in the four-day election.

The bloc's next parliament will help decide who runs the powerful European Commission, with German conservative Ursula von der Leyen vying for a second term.

While centrist parties are predicted to keep most of the legislature's 720 seats, polls suggest they will be weakened by a stronger far-right pushing the bloc towards ultraconservatism.

European voters, hammered by a high cost of living and some fearing immigrants to be the source of social ills, are increasingly persuaded by populist messaging.

In Germany, exit polls pointed to a stinging defeat for Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with all three parties in his troubled coalition behind the conservatives and the far-right, exit polls showed.

On 14 per cent, Scholz’s Social Democrats trailed the Alternative for Germany at between 16 and 16.5 per cent, and well behind the conservative CDU-CSU bloc’s 29.5 per cent.

In Austria meanwhile, the far-right Freedom Party was leading the vote count according to exit polls, the first time the group has topped a nationwide ballot in the Alpine country.

Florentine Bonaert, a 32-year-old business owner in Vienna did not disclose who she voted for, but said “migration policy was incredibly important” to her — as well as climate change and its impact on future generations.

In the closely-watched race in France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally is predicted to score about 30 per cent, double the voting intentions for President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal Renaissance party.

In the French city of Lyon, 83-year-old voter Albert Coulaudon said Macron was getting “mixed up” in too many international issues such as the war in Ukraine. “That scares me,” he said.

But in southern Toulouse, Martine Dorian, 76, said: “If tomorrow Europe disappears, there will be no France left either.”

In Italy the far-right ruling Brothers of Italy party of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was expected to come out on top.

Meloni is being courted both by von der Leyen — who needs her backing for a second mandate — as well as Le Pen and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who would like to form a far-right parliament supergroup.

War worries 

The Hungarian leader has stoked fears of the Ukraine war expanding to one between the West and Russia, blaming Brussels and NATO. As he cast his vote he framed it as a “pro-peace or pro-war election”.

But in eastern EU countries, the spectre of Russia’s threat loomed large.

“I want security, especially for the Baltic states. And greater support for Ukraine to end the war,” said Ieva Sterlinge, a 34-year-old Latvian doctor.

Likewise in Romania, psychologist Teodora Maia said she cast her vote on “the theme of war, which worries us all, and ecology”.

Polling data compiled by Politico suggest the centre-right EPP will win 173 seats in the legislature, with the centre-left Socialists and Democrats on 143 and the centrist Renew Europe on 75.

The main far-right grouping, the European Conservatives and Reformists, in which Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party sits, was projected to win 76 seats.

The smaller Identity and Democracy grouping that includes Le Pen’s RN was predicted to get 67.

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Four days of voting to choose a new European Parliament passed the halfway mark Saturday with Slovakia — shaken by an assassination attempt last month on its premier — and influential Italy joining in.

Most of the European Union’s 27 member countries, including powerhouses France and Germany, go to the polls on Sunday, the final day, with projected overall results due late that evening.

Slovakia’s voters have rallied to the ruling left-wing populist Smer-SD Party in the wake of the May 15 shooting of Prime Minister Robert Fico, who blamed the attack on the main liberal opposition and its “aggressive and hateful politics”.

Authorities said the assassination attempt, by a 71-year-old poet, was politically motivated.

One voter, Jozef Zahorsky, a 44-year-old teacher, said “it was not easy” but he cast his ballot for Smer because it stood for “the interests of Slovakia, not Brussels”.

Fico’s party opposes EU arms deliveries to Ukraine and rails against alleged “warmongers” in Brussels. 

Slovakia’s president-elect, Peter Pellegrini, victor in April national polls, is also Ukraine-sceptic. On Saturday he said the European Union was at a “crossroads”, needing a “new defence policy” and an alternative to a “restrictive” Green transition harming industry and competition. 

Those are positions shared with many far-right parties in Europe, which are predicted to make gains in the European Parliament.

Surveys suggest they could grab as much as a quarter of the 720 seats, weakening the centrist mainstream groupings which are expected to still come out on top.

Meloni courted 

A key indicator as to the make-up of the new parliament will come from Italy, the EU’s third-biggest economy governed by a coalition led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy.

If, as expected, her party wins, Italy could end up with significant influence over the five-year terms of both the incoming parliament and the next European Commission which will subsequently be put together.

Current commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has been courting Meloni, who along with other EU leaders will decide whether to give her a second mandate or replace her.

Von der Leyen has indicated willingness to have her European People’s Party work with far-right lawmakers in the parliament, as long as they are pro-EU and not what she calls “puppets” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

She explicitly ruled out allying with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France and Germany’s AfD on those grounds.

Both of those parties — unlike Meloni’s — are leery of EU military and financial support to Ukraine against Russia’s invading forces, with the AfD outright hostile to weapons deliveries.

Hungary’s ruling populist Fidesz Party is likewise opposed to further helping Kyiv.

The lead-up to the European Union elections in various countries has been marred by incidents of violence, though not all linked to political motives.

Late Friday in Denmark, which votes on Sunday, a man hit the prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, in a Copenhagen square. She was not seriously hurt, according to witnesses. Police arrested the assailant but gave few details.

‘Scary’ far-right 

In Italy, Meloni has put her name on the EU ballot papers as the lead candidate for the Brothers of Italy, though she does not intend to take up a seat in the European Parliament if chosen.

Instead she aims to bolster her Party’s grip on Italy’s fractious political scene, possibly at the expense of her junior coalition partner, the far-right League party.

In a video message posted on social media Saturday, Meloni said her priorities were to “defend Europe’s borders against illegal immigration [and] protect the real economy and jobs”.

Immigration is the hot-button issue driving much European support to the far-right.

In The Netherlands, which voted Thursday, the anti-immigration party of extreme-right leader Geert Wilders — also in the governing coalition — won second place, according to exit polls.

Voters in Ireland and the Czech Republic cast their ballots on Friday, with rhetoric around immigration — and the far-right’s focus on that — foremost in many minds.

“The rise of the far-right jumping on immigration is really, really scary for us,” said one Irish voter, 42-year-old finance worker Trevor Gardiner.