• New START treaty set to expire on Feb 5, 2026.
• Putin says step viable only if US follows similarly.
• Warns against moves undermining deterrence balance.

Russia on Monday offered to keep abiding by nuclear warhead limits agreed with the United States once a key treaty expires, but only for one year and if Washington did the same.

The New START treaty, signed in 2010, limits the number of nuclear warheads each side can deploy and is the last major arms proliferation agreement between the two nuclear powers.

It is set to expire on February 5, 2026, and neither side has agreed to an extension.

“Russia is prepared to continue adhering to the central quantitative limitations of the New START Treaty for one year after February 5, 2026,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised meeting.

He said the measure was needed to prevent “a strategic arms race” with Washington.

“We believe that this measure will only be viable if the United States acts in a similar manner and does not take steps that undermine or disrupt the existing balance of deterrence potentials,” Putin added.

Russia froze its participation in New START in 2023 but has continued to voluntarily follow the numerical limits in the treaty.

The agreement restricts both sides to a maximum of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads each, a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.

• Dozens killed in Nepal’s worst protest violence in decades.
• Protests led by Gen Z over corruption and lack of jobs.
• Over 2,100 injured; key govt buildings, malls set on fire.
  

Nepal’s interim government, led by former Chief Justice Sushila Karki, has set up a panel to investigate the violence during anti-corruption protests this month that killed 74 people and forced Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to quit, a minister said on Monday.

The demonstrations, which began as a Gen Z-led movement against widespread corruption and a lack of jobs, escalated into the Himalayan nation’s deadliest violence in decades.

More than 2,100 people were injured while protesters set fire to the main office complex that houses the prime minister’s office, the Supreme Court and the parliament building, as well as malls, luxury hotels and showrooms that the demonstrators said were owned by people close to corrupt politicians.

Rameshwore Khanal, who Sushila put in charge of the finance ministry, said the three-member panel headed by retired judge Gauri Bahadur Karki had been given three months to complete the probe.

“It will investigate […] the loss of life and property during the protests, excesses by both sides and people involved in the acts of arson and vandalism during the movement,” Khanal told Reuters.

In a social media post, former Prime Minister Oli also demanded an investigation into the violence and said his government did not order police to fire at the protesters. 

The protests were infiltrated by outsiders and police did not possess the type of weapons which were used to fire on the crowd, Oli said.

Karki is the former chairman of a special court that hears corruption cases in Nepal and has a reputation for honesty and integrity.

Britain, Australia, Canada and Portugal on Sunday recognised a Palestinian state after nearly two years of war in Gaza, with France, Belgium and other countries poised to follow suit at the UN General Assembly.

Here is an overview of diplomatic recognition of the state, which was unilaterally proclaimed by the Palestinian leadership in exile in 1988.

Of the territory claimed by the state, Israel currently occupies the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is largely in ruins.

Which countries recognise or will recognise State of Palestine?

Answer: three-quarters of UN members.

According to an AFP tally, at least 145 countries out of 193 UN members now recognise the State of Palestine.

AFP has not yet obtained recent confirmation from three African countries.

The count includes Britain and Canada – the first G7 countries to do so -, Australia and Portugal.

Several other countries, including France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Malta, are expected to follow suit during a summit on the future of the two-state solution chaired by France and Saudi Arabia on Monday at United Nations headquarters in New York.

Russia, alongside all Arab countries, almost all African and Latin American countries, and most Asian countries, including India and China, are already on the list.

Algeria became the first country to officially recognise a Palestinian state on November 15, 1988, minutes after late Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat unilaterally proclaimed an independent Palestinian state.

Dozens of other countries followed suit in the following weeks and months, and another wave of recognitions came in late 2010 and early 2011.

The Israeli offensive in Gaza has now driven another 13 countries to recognise the state.

Who does not?

Answer: at least 45 countries, including Israel, the United States and their allies.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government completely rejects the idea of a Palestinian state.

In Asia, Japan, South Korea and Singapore are among the countries that do not recognise Palestine.

Neither does Cameroon in Africa, Panama in Latin America and most countries in Oceania.

Europe is the most divided continent on the issue, and is split almost 50-50 over Palestinian statehood.

Until the mid-2010s, the only countries recognising the State of Palestine apart from Turkey were those of the former Soviet bloc.

Now, some former Eastern Bloc countries such as Hungary and the Czech Republic do not recognise a Palestinian state at a bilateral level.

Western and northern Europe were until now united in non-recognition, with the exception of Sweden, which extended recognition in 2014.

But the war in Gaza has upended things, with Norway, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia following in Sweden’s footsteps to recognise the state in 2024, before the United Kingdom and Portugal did so on Sunday.

Italy and Germany do not plan on recognising a Palestinian state.

What does recognition mean? 

Romain Le Boeuf, a professor in international law at the University of Aix-Marseille in southern France, described recognition of Palestinian statehood as “one of the most complicated questions” in international law, “a little like a halfway point between the political and juridical”.

He told AFP states were free to choose the timing and form of recognition, with great variations that are either explicit or implicit.

According to Le Boeuf, there is no office to register recognitions.

“The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank puts all they consider to be acts of recognition on its own list, but from a purely subjective point of view. In the same way, other states will say that they have or have not recognised, but without really having to justify themselves,” he said.

However, there is one point on which international law is quite clear: “Recognition does not mean that a state has been created, no more than the lack of recognition prevents the state from existing.”

While recognition carries largely symbolic and political weight, three-quarters of countries say “that Palestine meets all the necessary conditions to be a state”, he said.

“I know for many people this seems only symbolic, but actually in terms of symbolism, it is sort of a game changer,” lawyer and Franco-British law professor Philippe Sands wrote in the New York Times in mid-August 2025.

“Because once you recognise Palestinian statehood… you essentially put Palestine and Israel on level footing in terms of their treatment under international law.”