Heads of state

Finland's president plans to visit areas in Turkey devastated by last month's earthquake on Thursday and is preparing to meet the Turkish leader, after suggesting on Wednesday that Ankara might soon declare that it would ratify Finland's NATO membership and bring it a big step closer to joining the alliance.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinistö, will meet on March 17 to discuss Finland's bid to join NATO amid reports that Ankara plans to ratify Finland's accession protocol to the alliance in the coming days while delaying Sweden's bid.

A Brazilian magazine on Thursday released audio of a senator claiming then President Jair Bolsonaro sought help in a plot to annul the October elections and keep himself in power.

While that may have attracted some additional support from a sizable but fragmented anti-establishment and extremist minority that has emerged in the country, it also appeared to help mobilise the liberal democratic part of the electorate. The resulting turnout of over 70 per cent was a record for the second round of the election.

Ukraine was the most searched entry in Greek Wikipedia last year, exceeding 700,000 views, which is an all-time record, according to data published by the local Wikimedia Community User Group on its website on Monday.

The funeral procession of former King of Greece Constantine II will be held at the Orthodox Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens followed by a private burial at the cemetery of the former royal estate of Tatoi, north of the Greek capital Monday. His body will lie at rest in Saint Eleftherios chapel next to the Cathedral ahead of the funeral service.

Brazil's Supreme Court has agreed to investigate whether former president Jair Bolsonaro incited the far-right mob that ransacked the country's Congress, top court and presidential offices, a swift escalation in the probe that shows the ex-leader could face legal consequences for an extremist movement he helped build.

Brazilian authorities seeking to punish the mob that stormed the halls of power in Brasilia issued arrest warrants Tuesday for two former senior officials, one of them a close ally of far right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro.

One of them is Anderson Torres, who used to be Bolsonaro's justice minister and lately served as security chief in the capital.

Constantine, the former and last king of Greece, who won an Olympic gold medal before becoming entangled in his country's volatile politics in the 1960s as king and spent decades in exile, has died. He was 82.

Brazilian security forces cleared protest camps Monday and arrested 1,500 people as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva condemned "acts of terrorism" after a far-right mob stormed the seat of power, unleashing chaos on the capital.

Hundreds of soldiers and police mobilized to dismantle an improvised camp outside the army's headquarters in Brasilia.