Kyiv under Russian missile attack as Ukraine war discussed at UN meeting
As the Ukraine war is highlighted by some leaders during the United Nations' 81st General Assembly meetin...
Kenton Cool extended his record for a foreign climber on Everest after reaching the summit before dawn on Friday, according to officials.
British climber Kenton Cool improved his own Everest record on Friday, reaching the summit of the world's highest mountain for the 20th time, hiking officials said.
Cool, 52, climbed the 8,849-metre peak before dawn and was descending to lower camps, Ishwori Poudel of expedition organising company Himalayan Guides said.
Cool's latest ascent gives him more Everest summits than any non-Sherpa climber, according to expedition organiser Lukas Furtenbach of Austria-based Furtenbach Adventures.
Cool climbed with one of Furtenbach's teams on the mountain.
"More Everest summits than any non-Sherpa ever... and still making it look like just another walk in the hills. Absolute legend," Furtenbach told Reuters from base camp.
Furtenbach, a four-time Everest climber, said Cool was "quietly rewriting the record books" with the latest climb.
Cool first climbed Everest in 2004 and has repeated the ascent every year except in years when authorities closed the mountain for various reasons.
He said reaching the height of Everest was still not routine despite his record number of climbs.
"It never gets any easier or any less frightening. It's the tallest mountain in the world and with it comes an incredible sense of majesty," Cool said in a statement.
"I rely on every bit of experience I have to move safely in this environment. Standing on the summit for the twentieth time is incredibly special," he added.
The overall record for the highest number of Everest summits is held by Nepali Sherpa Kami Rita at 32. More than 8,000 people have climbed Everest, many of them multiple times, since New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first scaled it in 1953.
As the Ukraine war is highlighted by some leaders during the United Nations' 81st General Assembly meeting in New York, Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Thursday with ballistic missiles, killing two people and injuring six, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained low on Thursday, as Iran reiterated that it will neither enter into new negotiations with the United States nor re-open the Strait as long as its conditions are not met, despite recent indirect talks in New York mediated by Qatar.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in New York on Wednesday, as Washington pushes for an end to the war in Ukraine and Kyiv and Moscow continue to strike energy infrastructure.
U.S. President Donald Trump said his team held a three-hour meeting with an Iranian delegation in New York that he described as “very good” and “productive”, with another round of talks scheduled soon.
The 81st UN General Assembly continues in New York on Wednesday, with another day of high-level speeches and diplomatic meetings. The wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, global security and international cooperation remain at the centre of discussions.
As the Ukraine war is highlighted by some leaders during the United Nations' 81st General Assembly meeting in New York, Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Thursday with ballistic missiles, killing two people and injuring six, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
The 81st UN General Assembly returns for its third day in New York on Thursday, with world leaders delivering high-level speeches and holding diplomatic meetings. Restoring trust, managing global transformation, peace and security, and international cooperation remain at the centre of discussions.
Australia says an OpenAI AI agent gained unauthorised access to a government Medicare statistics portal in June, in what officials say could be an unprecedented case of an AI system breaching a government network.
Pakistan says it carried out air strikes on 10 locations in Afghanistan on Thursday, targeting sites it said were used to store and launch drones, as tensions between the two neighbouring countries continued to escalate.
Here’s your AnewZ Daily Brief for 24 September 2026, with five key developments from the second day of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York.
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