Portugal Colonial - The latest news from Lisbon, Portugal and Europe, in six languages, around the clock every day

The arrival of Ukrainian athletes at Beijing's Winter Paralympics is a "miracle", the team's top official said Thursday, with some narrowly escaping bombs as they left during the Russian invasion.

World champion Max Verstappen has signed a long-term contract extension with Red Bull, the Formula One team announced on Thursday.

Russian and Belarusian athletes were on Thursday banned from the Beijing Winter Paralympics over the war in Ukraine, with organisers bowing to international pressure and threats of a boycott.

Russian troops seized Kherson, the first major Ukrainian city to fall in a war that has drawn global outrage and driven one million civilians from their homes, ahead of ceasefire talks Thursday.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked a widespread backlash in the sports world, with the country booted out of this year's World Cup. However their Paralympians will be permitted to compete at the Beijing Winter Games under the Paralympic flag.

Ten-time champions the United States were pitted alongside Belgium and China but avoided hosts Australia Thursday at the draw for the women's basketball World Cup, which will be played without Russia.

Marilyn Manson on Wednesday filed court proceedings against his ex-fiancee US actress Rachel Even Wood -- who has accused the goth rocker of raping her -- for engaging in conspiracy, fraud and defamation to destroy his career, according to the complaint.

More than one million people have fled Ukraine into neighbouring countries since Russia launched its full-scale invasion just a week ago.

Oleg Rubak wept for love of his wife Katia, crushed in the rubble of his family home, and for hatred of Vladimir Putin, whom he blames for the missile strike that killed her.

The loudspeaker announcement is nearly drowned out by the hubbub of passengers spilling out of the train from Warsaw, but it's a message many of them have been longing to hear: "Dear passengers from Ukraine, welcome to Berlin!"

One million refugees have fled Ukraine in the week since Russia's invasion, the United Nations said Thursday, warning that unless the conflict ended immediately, millions more were likely to flee.

Stocks rose Thursday after Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell said the bank would hike interest rates gradually to fight inflation, though oil marched towards $120 as the Ukraine conflict continues to roil energy markets.

High above Bosnia's capital Sarajevo, a ski resort bringing together alpine enthusiasts from across the Balkans has proved a surprising success story in a country still struggling to find its footing nearly three decades after war.

A showjumper thrown out of Australia's Tokyo Olympic team after testing positive for cocaine was on Thursday banned for two years.

From standing ovations for Ukrainian speakers to a diplomatic walkout as Russia's foreign minister begins to speak, Moscow has found itself very publicly isolated at the United Nations this week.

Australia's first Test in Pakistan in 24 years starting Friday is threatened by rain, but even storm clouds failed to dampen the mood of rival captains Pat Cummins and Babar Azam on the eve of the match.

Taiwan must not be allowed to go the same way as Ukraine, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday during a meeting with the island's president.

Australia's emergency services Thursday ordered 200,000 people to flee from the path of a wild storm that has killed 13 people in a week of record-setting east coast floods, but the city of Sydney escaped the worst of the deluge.

Veteran middleweight Gennady Golovkin announced Thursday that his title unification fight against Ryota Murata will take place in Japan next month, after being postponed in December because of Covid travel restrictions.

The International Monetary Fund warned crisis-hit Sri Lanka on Thursday that its foreign debt was "unsustainable", and called for devaluation and higher taxes to revive the almost bankrupt economy.

Provocative Italian filmmaker and poet Pier Paolo Pasolini had no shortage of enemies, but half a century after his brutal murder on a beach, his death remains a mystery.

The Russian military's initial invasion of Ukraine has been a surprising strategic and tactical blunder marked by food and fuel shortages, abandoned armored vehicles, aircraft losses and troop deaths, US experts say.

Kicked out in the middle of a harsh Turkish winter, 30-year-old Erdem Yilmaz calculated that he spent two and a half months' salary to urgently relocate to a new home in Istanbul.

German carrier Lufthansa said Thursday that it cut its losses by two-thirds in 2021, but warned of uncertainty for the industry from the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A court in Texas ordered the suspension Wednesday of a probe into the parents of a transgender 16-year-old girl under a legal opinion that deemed transitioning procedures as tantamount to child abuse.

Russian troops have seized Kherson, the first major Ukrainian city to fall in a devastating week-old war that has already created one million refugees.

The invasion of Ukraine has thrown Germany's problematic dependence on Russian gas into stark relief, forcing Europe's largest economy to urgently reshape its energy mix.

Sotheby's auction house is almost three centuries old but its top brass want to embrace the cutting edge of technology and all of its buzzwords -- metaverse, NFT and crypto among them.

Newspaper sellers were once a dime a dozen on Cairo's bustling streets, but now the vendors hawking hot-off-the-press editions have fallen almost silent.

In a busy district of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, there is little to distinguish the faded brick building, except for a Hebrew inscription above the entrance.

From his shock detention to an audacious escape from Japan hidden in an audio-equipment box, the rollercoaster saga of former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn has grabbed headlines worldwide.

The legislative panel probing the assault on the US Capitol by a mob of then-president Donald Trump's supporters alleged in a court filing Wednesday that he and his allies took part in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.