President-elect Donald Trump's decision to select a former Rose Bowl tight end embroiled in a masculine toilet scandal to represent the nation abroad was received with the all the decorum such an announcement could expect.

"UPDATE: Trump picks Matthew Whitaker for NATO ambassador," the news outlet Tennessee Holler told readers Wednesday. "You may remember him as the acting attorney general who was on the board of a company that boasted toilets for 'well-endowed men.'"

Whitaker was indeed acting attorney general during Trump's first administration and, as multiple reports show, subjected to intense media scrutiny for pedaling toilets purportedly designed to keep large penises from touching human waste, as a "MASCULINE TOILET" press release explained in 2014.

But as Vanity Fair, the Washington Post, Miami New Times, the Wall Street Journal and GQ reported in 2018, the former federal prosecutor ran a Florida-based invention company that the news outlets, customers and investigators described as "a scam."

"Whitaker was also a cartoonish, grifting dope who shilled for a company that hawked time-travel cryptocurrencies, Bigfoot dolls, and toilets specially designed for men with big d----," GQ reported at the time. "[It] was shut down for good and paid a $26 million fine to the Federal Trade Commission earlier this year for its alleged wrongdoing."

The Post added, "The FTC alleged in a 2017 complaint that the company bilked customers with fraudulent promises that it would help them market their invention. The FBI has also investigated World Patent Marketing."

It appears political spectators have not forgotten these reports, as responses to Trump's latest appointment pick show.

."Everything old and disastrous is new and disastrous again," replied writer Polly Sigh. "Trump’s former inept acting-AG and 'masculine toilet' salesmen, Matthew Whitaker, will be Trump’s NATO Ambassador."

"The guy who ran a major toilet scam is now Trump’s nominated US Ambassador to NATO," wrote American public health scientist Eric Feigl-Ding. "That is all."

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"Trump's choice for Ambassador to NATO was out here running toilet scams and intimidating people who complained," wrote Brandon Weathersby, of the anti-Trump political group American Bridge. "Another [poo emoji] pick."

"This isn’t a nomination—it’s a sabotage mission," Democratic activist Chris D. Jackson replied. "This move is a direct attack on the foundation of our global partnerships."

"He has no foreign policy experience of any kind that I can find in his bio, announcement or wiki," added NBC News reporter Garrett Haake, "but appears to be the only NATO ambassador who would have played in a Rose Bowl."

However Brooke Rollins, of the influential conservative political group America First Policy Institute, said she was thrilled.

"FOR THE WIN! Strength. Smarts. Dedication. MAGA. All the qualities in our own [Whitaker] that will make him an outstanding United States Ambassador to NATO," Rollins wrote.

"Congratulations, my friend!!! You are the right man to represent America in a continent at war and under threat."

On Wednesday morning, MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire reported that current and former domestic and foreign intel officials are expressing extreme alarm over the nomination by Donald Trump about his choice of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as his Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

Following a discussion on other problematic nominees, including ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, Lemire stated there is a growing consensus that Gabbard is completely unacceptable and key U.S. allies are sending out warnings they will not share intel with her.

"What do you hear in talking to your sources in Washington at the edge of the intelligence community?" Morning Joe regular Mike Barnicle asked. "Do you hear the same thing that a lot of other people are hearing: that the British, the French, the Israelis, are coming in with hints that, you know, we're not going to share intelligence, our intelligence with Tulsi Gabbard?"

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"Yes. Current and former intelligence officers have expressed that fear and have heard that from their colleagues overseas saying there is going to be real reluctance to share some of their, those nation's, top secrets and intel with the United States," Lemire replied. "There are some concerns about Trump who, as we know, revealed intel, but Tulsi Gabbard in particular –– someone who voiced talking points that emanated from Moscow, has cozied up with the Syrians."

"There is real concern here that the nation will be less safe because allies aren't going to trust us with their intel," he added.

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Ukraine is having a tough time as its neighbor Russia wages war against it and "it’s going to get so much worse under the Trump administration," according to a Trump family member.

Donald Trump's niece, trained psychologist Mary Trump, on Wednesday wrote about the war in Ukraine. Specifically, she talked about all the terrible things Ukraine has already gone through, and then issued a warning about what could come next.

"Of all the unthinkable scenarios we’ve been forced to consider since Donald won the election on November 5th is the possibility that all of this will have been for naught," Mary Trump wrote. "After all, the fate of Ukraine and Zelesnkyy may rest with Donald Trump, Putin’s puppet, a man who is enamored of and beholden to the very autocrat who wants to destroy our ally."

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Mary Trump went on to note that Trump ally Elon Musk has been on calls with foreign leaders, including Zelesnkyy and Putin. Musk has also mocked Zelesnkyy.

"As unthinkable as it may be, we must contemplate how the world will react if, as seems likely, Donald withdraws the United States’ support from Ukraine in order to appease Vladimir Putin, his puppet-master—and our enemy. What will happen to Ukraine and Zelenskyy when one of their staunchest allies betrays them?" she asked.

"Ukraine has been through hell, but they remain an example of how to beat extraordinary odds. Remember this?" Mary Trump wrote before reminding readers that Ukraine once said, "Russian warship, go f--- yourself.”

She added, "It’s going to get so much worse under the Trump administration so we must continue to support Ukraine in whatever way we can."

She then continued, "And we can start by saying to my uncle, “Go f--- yourself.”

For world leaders and diplomats at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, US President-elect Donald Trump was the man who cannot be named.

Almost nobody would mention the next occupant of the White House directly, even as his impending return to power hung over the meeting.

Leaders would instead talk in coded terms about the "next administration," "turbulence" and "change."

But it was clear what they meant, even as they sought to avoid falling out with the man who will be at work in the Oval Office from January 20.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who expended considerable effort trying to win over Trump during the American's first term, made veiled comments at the summit about tariffs and climate.

"Any fragmentation or fracturing of the international order by tariff policies which are carried out by the strongest simply leads all others not to respect it," Macron said -- without referring to Trump by name.

Trump has pledged to impose sweeping tariffs on imports into the United States, including on goods from Europe and as much as 60 percent on goods from China.

Macron also referred to "fragile" climate policies, with Trump threatening to take the United States back out of the Paris accords that are aimed at reducing global warming.

- Swerve -

It was the same whenever leaders spoke, as they seemingly treated Trump like the villain Voldemort in the Harry Potter films and books, whose name the heroes cannot mention.

UN chief Antonio Guterres swerved any head-on mention of Trump when he talked of the "very important" U.S. role on climate and how he was "deeply confident" that America would "move in the direction of climate action."

The only places Trump's face could be seen were on placards held by protesters outside the summit venue -- and on the social media feed of Argentina's right-wing, Trump-supporting president.

Javier Milei reposted a meme contrasting a photo of himself meeting the smiling Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort after the election, with another of Milei beside a grim-faced Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Behind the scenes, officials were circumspect.

One European diplomat said that the continent had "worked with him before" and would do so again.

- 'Decisions' -

US officials insisted time and again that Trump's name did not come up in outgoing President Joe Biden's final meetings with his counterparts, or even that it was a major consideration.

"I don’t think we are expecting some major reorientation of how other countries look at the world or look at their relationship with us," Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer told reporters.

"They will make those decisions for themselves based on their interests, in January."

Perhaps it was partly out of deference to Biden, making his swan song on the international stage.

Biden himself skirted round the issue -- in fact he has long resisted mentioning the name of the man he often calls "my predecessor," who is now his successor.

The 81-year-old Biden tried to shore up his legacy while his fellow summiteers looked over his shoulder.

As Biden remarked that it was his final summit, he called for leaders to "keep going -- and I’m sure you will, regardless of my urging or not."

On the final day, Biden seemed to realize that the return of he-who-cannot-be named was nigh.

"I have much more to say," Biden said, before stopping himself and adding: "I'm not going to."

Peruvian authorities said Tuesday they have tightened security at the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu after tourists there were filmed dispersing what were believed to be human ashes.

Last week, citizens in Peru were outraged by a non-dated video on Tiktok in which a woman at the tourist site took ashes from a plastic bag and threw them in the air, then hugged another woman.

The video had a caption about "saying goodbye with much love at Machu Picchu" and hashtags with the words "ashes" and "spreading ashes."

The 30-second video was first shown on the account @IncaGoExpeditions, belonging to a travel agency, before it was removed from TikTok.

Cesar Medina, the head of Machu Picchu archeological park, told AFP that officials were going to hire more guards and install more surveillance cameras.

He said there was nothing in local laws barring people from spreading human ashes in public.

But this will now be barred at Machu Picchu for health reasons, Medina said.

Classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site, the site welcomes an average of 5,600 visitors a day but until now had only four cameras and a small team of security guards.

The ancient citadel, built in the 15th century by Incan emperor Pachacuti, sits at an altitude of 2,438 meters in the Peruvian Andes.

Checking imported books, removing texts from libraries and distributing lists of banned titles -- Taliban authorities are working to remove "un-Islamic" and anti-government literature from circulation.

The efforts are led by a commission established under the Ministry of Information and Culture soon after the Taliban swept to power in 2021 and implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or sharia.

In October, the ministry announced the commission had identified 400 books "that conflicted with Islamic and Afghan values, most of which have been collected from the markets".

The department in charge of publishing has distributed copies of the Koran and other Islamic texts to replace seized books, the ministry statement said.

The ministry has not provided figures for the number of removed books, but two sources, a publisher in Kabul and a government employee, said texts had been collected in the first year of Taliban rule and again in recent months.

"There is a lot of censorship. It is very difficult to work, and fear has spread everywhere," the Kabul publisher told AFP.

Books were also restricted under the previous foreign-backed government ousted by the Taliban, when there was "a lot of corruption, pressures and other issues", he said.

But "there was no fear, one could say whatever he or she wanted to say", he added.

"Whether or not we could make any change, we could raise our voices."

- 'Contradictory to religion' -

AFP received a list of five of the banned titles from an information ministry official.

It includes "Jesus the Son of Man" by renowned Lebanese-American author Khalil Gibran, for containing "blasphemous expressions", and the "counterculture" novel "Twilight of the Eastern Gods" by Albanian author Ismail Kadare.

"Afghanistan and the Region: A West Asian Perspective" by Mirwais Balkhi, an education minister under the former government, was also banned for "negative propaganda".

During the Taliban's previous rule from 1996 to 2001, there were comparatively few publishing houses and booksellers in Kabul, the country having already been wracked by decades of war.

Today, thousands of books are imported each week alone from neighboring Iran -- which shares the Persian language with Afghanistan -- through the Islam Qala border crossing in western Herat province.

Taliban authorities rifled through boxes of a shipment at a customs warehouse in Herat city last week.

One man flipped through a thick English-language title, as another, wearing a camouflage uniform with a man's image on the shoulder patch, searched for pictures of people and animals in the books.

"We have not banned books from any specific country or person, but we study the books and we block those that are contradictory to religion, sharia or the government, or if they have photos of living things," said Mohammad Sediq Khademi, an official with the Herat department for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV).

"Any books that are against religion, faith, sect, sharia... we will not allow them," the 38-year-old told AFP, adding the evaluations of imported books started some three months ago.

Images of living things -- barred under some interpretations of Islam -- are restricted according to a recent "vice and virtue" law that codifies rules imposed since the Taliban returned to power, but the regulations have been unevenly enforced.

Importers have been advised of which books to avoid, and when books are deemed unsuitable, they are given the option of returning them and getting their money back, Khademi said.

"But if they can't, we don't have any other option but to seize them," he added.

"Once, we had 28 cartons of books that were rejected."

- Clearing stock -

Authorities have not gone from shop to shop checking for banned books, an official with the provincial information department and a Herat bookseller said, asking not to be named.

However, some books have been removed from Herat libraries and Kabul bookstores, a bookseller told AFP, also asking for anonymity, including "The History of Jihadi Groups in Afghanistan" by Afghan author Yaqub Mashauf.

Books bearing images of living things can still be found in Herat shops.

In Kabul and Takhar -- a northern province where booksellers said they had received the list of 400 banned books -- disallowed titles remained on some shelves.

Many non-Afghan works were banned, one seller said, "so they look at the author, whose name is there, and they are mostly banned" if they're foreign.

His bookshop still carried translations of Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Gambler" and fantasy novel "Daughter of the Moon Goddess" by Sue Lynn Tan.

But he was keen to sell them "very cheap" now, to clear them from his stock.

It was an unlucky day in the Burmese calendar, farmer Yar Swe Kyin warned her husband in July, begging him not to go out to check on their crops.

Hours later he was dead, killed by one of the countless landmines laid by both sides in Myanmar's three brutal years of civil war.

In the evening, "I heard an explosion from the field," she told AFP at her home in the hills of northern Shan state.

"I knew he had gone to that area and I was worried."

She had urged her husband to stay home because the traditional Burmese calendar, which is guided by lunar cycles, planetary alignment and other factors, marked it out as inauspicious.

"He didn't listen to me," she said.

"Now, I only have a son and grandchild left."

Decades of sporadic conflict between the military and ethnic rebel groups have left Myanmar littered with deadly landmines.

That conflict has been turbocharged by the junta's 2021 coup, which birthed dozens of newer "People's Defence Forces" now battling to topple the military.

Landmines and other remnants of war claimed more victims in Myanmar than in any other country last year, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), with the Southeast Asian country overtaking war-ravaged Syria and Ukraine.

- 'Trees were spinning' -

At least 228 people -- more than four a week -- were killed by the devices and 770 more were wounded in Myanmar in 2023, it said in its latest report Wednesday.

In eastern Kayah state, a short journey to collect rice to feed his wife and children left farmer Hla Han crippled by a landmine, unable to work and fearing for his family's future.

He had returned home after junta troops had moved out from his village and stepped on a mine placed near the entrance to the local church.

"When I woke up I didn't know how I had fallen down and only got my senses back about a minute later," he told AFP.

"When I looked up, the sky and trees were spinning."

Now an amputee, the 52-year-old worries how to support his family of six who are already living precariously amidst Myanmar's civil war.

"After I lost my leg to the land mine, I can't work anymore. I only eat and sleep and sometimes visit friends -- that's all I can do," he said.

"My body is not the same anymore, my thoughts are not the same and I can't do anything I want to... I can eat like others, but I can't work like them."

His daughter Aye Mar said she had begged him not to go back into the village.

"When my father lost his leg, all of our family's hopes were gone," she said.

"I also don't have a job and I can't support him financially. I also feel I'm an irresponsible daughter."

- 'Nothing is the same' -

Myanmar is not a signatory to the United Nations convention that prohibits the use, stockpiling or development of anti-personnel mines.

The ICBL campaign group said there had been a "significant increase" in anti-personnel mine use by the military in recent years, including around infrastructure such as mobile phone towers and energy pipelines.

The church in Kayah state where Hla Han lost his leg is still standing but its facade is studded with bullet wounds.

A green tape runs alongside a nearby rural road, a rudimentary warning that the forest beyond it may be contaminated.

Some villagers had returned to their homes after the latest wave of fighting had moved on, said Aye Mar.

"But I don't dare to go and live in my house right now."

She and her father are just two of the more than three million people the United Nations says have been forced from their homes by fighting since the coup.

"Sometimes I think that it would have been better if one side gave up in the early stage of the war," she said.

But an end to the conflict looks far off, leaving Hla Han trying to come to terms with his fateful step.

"From that instant you are disabled and nothing is the same as before."

Gunshots, screams, eerie laughter: South Korea's border island Ganghwa is being bombarded nightly with blood-curdling sounds, part of a new campaign by the nuclear-armed North that is driving residents to despair.

Before it started, 56-year-old Kim Yun-suk fell asleep to the hum of insects and woke to the chirping of birds. Now, she is kept awake every night by what sounds like the soundtrack of a low-budget horror movie at top volume.

"The peaceful sounds of nature... have now been drowned out," Kim told AFP.

"All we hear is this noise."

The campaign is the latest manifestation of steadily-declining ties between the two Koreas this year, which have also seen Pyongyang test ever more powerful missiles and bombard the South with trash-carrying balloons.

Since July, North Korea has been broadcasting the noises for huge chunks of almost every day from loudspeakers along the border.

The northern point of Ganghwa -- an island in the Han river estuary on the Yellow Sea -- is only about two kilometres (a mile) from the North.

When AFP visited, the nighttime broadcast included what sounded like the screams of people dying on the battlefield, the crack of gunfire, bombs exploding, along with chilling music that started at 11:00 pm.

In the almost pitch-black fields, sinister noises echoed as the stars in the clear night sky shone beautifully alongside the coastal road lights, creating a stark and unsettling contrast.

North Korea has done propaganda broadcasts before, said 66-year-old villager Ahn Hyo-cheol, but they used to focus on criticising the South's leaders, or idealizing the North.

Now "there were sounds like a wolf howling, and ghostly sounds", he said.

"It feels unpleasant and gives me chills. It really feels bizarre."

Ganghwa county councillor Park Heung-yeol said that the new broadcasts were "not just regime propaganda -- it's genuinely intended to torment people".

- Torture -

Experts said the new broadcasts almost meet the criteria for a torture campaign.

"Almost every regime has used noise torture and sleep deprivation," Rory Cox, a historian at University of St Andrews, told AFP.

"It is very common and leaves no physical scarring, therefore making it deniable."

Exposure to noise levels above 60 decibels at night increases the risk of sleep disorders, experts said, but AFP tracked levels of up to 80 decibels late at night on Ganghwa during a recent trip.

"I find myself taking headache medicine almost all the time," An Mi-hee, 37, told AFP, adding that prolonged sleep deprivation due to the noise has also led to anxiety, eye pain, facial tremors and drowsiness.

"Our kids can't sleep either, so they've developed mouth sores and are dozing off at school."

Distraught and desperate, An travelled to Seoul and got on her knees to beg lawmakers at the National Assembly to find a solution, breaking down in tears as she described the island's suffering.

"It would actually be better if there were a flood, a fire, or even an earthquake, because those events have a clear recovery timeline," An said.

"We have no idea if this will go on until the person in North Korea who gives the orders dies, or if it could be cut off at any moment. We just don't know."

- '70s horror flick' -

The noise tormenting Ganghwa island residents appeared to be a rudimentary mix of clips from a sound library, typically common at any TV or radio broadcasters, audio experts told AFP.

The sound effects are "like something found in a South Korean horror film in the 70s and 80s," said sound engineer Hwang Kwon-ik.

The two Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950 to 1953 conflict ended in an armistice not a peace treaty.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year declared Seoul his "principal enemy" and has ramped up weapons testing and built closer military ties with Russia.

The isolated and impoverished North is known to be extremely sensitive about its citizens gaining access to South Korean pop culture.

Some experts have suggested the latest broadcasts could be aimed at preventing North Korean soldiers from hearing the South's own propaganda broadcasts, which typically feature K-pop songs and international news.

In August, just weeks after South Korea resumed K-pop broadcasts in response to Pyongyang floating trash-carrying balloons south, a North Korean soldier defected by crossing the heavily fortified border on foot.

But Lee Su-yong, an audio production professor at the Dong-Ah Institute of Media and Arts, said "if there is sound coming towards the North that you want to mask, then the sound (you use to cover it) must also be directed toward the North."

"It seems less about masking noise and more about inflicting pain on people in the South," he told AFP.

Choi Hyoung-chan, a 60-year-old resident, said the South Korean government had failed to protect vulnerable civilians on the frontier.

"They should come here and try to live with these sounds for just ten days," he told AFP, referring to officials in Seoul.

"I doubt they could even endure a single day."

A study published Tuesday estimates that tax dodging enabled by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other wealthy nations is costing countries around the world nearly half a trillion dollars in revenue each year, underscoring the urgent need for global reforms to prevent rich individuals and large corporations from shirking their obligations.

The new study, conducted by the Tax Justice Network (TJN), finds that "the combined costs of cross-border tax abuse by multinational companies and by individuals with undeclared assets offshore stands at an estimated $492 billion." Of that total in lost revenue, corporate tax dodging is responsible for more than $347 billion, according to TJN's calculations.

"For people everywhere, the losses translate into foregone public services, and weakened states at greater risk of falling prey to political extremism," the study reads. "And in the same way, there is hope for all to benefit from moving tax rule-setting out of the OECD and into a globally inclusive and fully transparent process at the United Nations."

The analysis estimates that just eight countries—the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Japan, Israel, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand—are enabling large-scale tax avoidance by opposing popular global reform efforts. Late last year, those same eight countries were the lonely opponents of the United Nations General Assembly's vote to set in motion the process of establishing a U.N. tax convention.

According to the new TJN study, those eight countries are responsible for roughly half of the $492 billion lost per year globally to tax avoidance by the rich and large multinational corporations, despite being home to just 8% of the world's population.

"The hurtful eight voted for a world where we all keep losing half a trillion a year to tax-cheating multinational corporations and the super-rich," Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, said in a statement Tuesday. "The U.K. and the U.S. are both among the biggest enablers and the biggest losers of this lose-lose tax system, and their people consistently demand an end to tax abuse, so it's absurd that the U.S. and U.K. are seeking to preserve it."

"It's perhaps harder to understand why the other handful of blockers, like Australia, Canada, and Japan, who don't play anything like such a damaging role, would be willing to go along with this," Cobham added.

TJN released its study as G20 nations—a group that includes most of the "hurtful eight"—issued a communiqué pledging to "engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed." Brazil, which hosted the G20 summit, led the push for language calling for taxation of the global super-rich.

The document drew praise from advocacy groups including the Fight Inequality Alliance, which stressed the need to "transform the rhetoric on taxing the rich into global reality."

The communiqué was released amid concerns that the election of far-right billionaire Donald Trump in the U.S. could derail progress toward a global solution to pervasive and costly tax avoidance.

The new TJN study cites Trump's pledge to cut the statutory U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% and warns such a move would accelerate the global "race to the bottom" on corporate taxation.

"People in countries around the world are calling in large majorities on their governments to tax multinational corporations properly," Liz Nelson, TJN's director of advocacy and research, said Tuesday. "But governments continue to exercise a policy of appeasement on corporate tax."

"We now have data from these governments showing that when they asked multinational corporations to pay less tax, the corporations cheated even more," Nelson added. "It's time governments found the spines their people deserve from their leaders."

Brazilian police said they arrested four soldiers on Tuesday over an alleged plot to assassinate then President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a 2022 "coup."

The four "were arrested in Rio, where they were participating in the security operation for the G20 leaders' meeting," a federal police source told AFP, adding that a police officer was also taken into custody.

The army, in a statement, denied that information, saying in a statement: "These soldiers were not part of the operation of maintaining order at the G20 summit."

A statement by Brazil's federal police made no link to the G20.

It said the suspects were "mostly soldiers with special forces training" who were arrested in an operation to "dismantle a criminal organization responsible for planning a coup d'etat to prevent the government legitimately elected in 2022 elections taking office."

US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are among leaders in Rio for the annual get-together of the heads of the world's biggest economies.

Security is tight for the event, with troops in armored vehicles lining the streets of the usually laid-back seaside city.

Tuesday's arrests come under a week after a failed bomb attack on the Supreme Court by a suspected far-right extremist, who killed himself in the process.

The alleged plot against Lula was to have been carried out on December 15, 2022 -- just weeks before the veteran leftist returned to office at the start of 2023 -- and involved "the murder of the candidates to the presidency and vice presidency," the statement said.

The suspected coup-plotters, who also allegedly planned to assassinate a Supreme Court justice, intended afterwards to set up a "crisis cabinet" with themselves in it, the police added.

Brazilian media said the judge they plotted to kill was Alexandre de Moraes, a powerful justice who has drawn the ire of the right for his investigations into the far-right and for shutting down the social network X for 40 days in a fight with its owner Elon Musk over disinformation.

- 'Green-and-yellow dagger' -

The suspects possessed "advanced military operational" know-how and had codenamed their plot "Green and Yellow Dagger," according to the federal police. That was an apparent reference to colors on the Brazilian flag.

They face potential charges of violently trying to overthrow the government, coup-plotting and being part of a criminal organization, the statement added.

In October 2022, Lula defeated far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, who had served a single term in office, to regain power after a decade's absence.

Thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in Brasilia on January 8, 2023 in an uprising reminiscent of the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump.

Several investigations have been opened into the Brasilia riots, as well as other alleged plots to prevent Lula taking office.

The man who carried out a failed bomb attack on the Supreme Court last week, killing himself in the process, is also suspected of involvement in the 2023 unrest.

Booming Indigenous Maori "haka" chants rang out across New Zealand's capital on Tuesday, as tens of thousands rallied against a conservative push to redefine the nation's founding treaty.

More than 35,000 demonstrators poured into the harborside city of Wellington, police said, shutting down busy streets as their spirited procession inched its way towards parliament.

Bare-chested men draped in traditional feather cloaks were joined by horse riders waving the red, white and black Maori flag.

Children marched alongside adults bearing distinctive full-face Maori "moko" tattoos and clutching ceremonial wooden weapons.

Protests have been swelling throughout New Zealand after a minor party in the conservative coalition government drafted a bill to redefine the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.

Although the bill has almost no chance of passing, its mere introduction has triggered one of New Zealand's largest protests in decades.

- 'Heads held high' -

After it was presented for debate in parliament last week, 22-year-old Maori Party MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke took to her feet in the chamber, ripped the bill in half, and launched into a haka.

She joined the crowds of protesters gathered on the lawns Tuesday outside New Zealand's beehive-shaped parliament building.

"I may have been suspended for 24 hours and not let into the gates of the debating chambers, but the next day I showed up outside the steps with a hundred thousand of my people, marching with our heads held high and our flags waving with pride," she told them.

"We are the king makers, we are the sovereign people of this land and the world is watching us here."

Many critics of the bill -- including some of New Zealand's most respected lawyers -- see it as an attempt to strip long-agreed rights from the country's 900,000 strong Maori population.

"It's not the best way to have a conversation. We will not accept unilateral change to a treaty that involves two parties," said Ngira Simmonds, a key advisor to New Zealand's Maori queen.

"There is a better way," he told AFP from Wellington.

Many demonstrators arrived in Wellington after a nine-day "hikoi" -- or protest march -- that began hundreds of kilometres away at New Zealand's northern tip.

- A country divided -

At the centre of the outcry is government minister David Seymour, the outspoken leader of the libertarian ACT Party -- a minor partner in the governing coalition.

Seymour has long railed against affirmative action policies designed to help Maori, who remain far more likely to die early, live in poverty, or wind up in prison.

His bill would look to wind back these so-called "special rights".

Incumbent Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has voiced his opposition to Seymour's bill, meaning it is all but doomed to fail when it comes to a parliamentary vote.

But former conservative prime minister Jenny Shipley said just putting it forward threatened to "divide New Zealand in a way that I haven't lived through in my adult life".

Seen as the country's founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 to bring peace between 540 Maori chiefs and colonising British forces.

Its principles today underpin efforts to foster partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous New Zealanders and protect the interests of the Maori community.

The anniversary of the treaty's signing remains a national holiday.

G20 leaders met in Rio de Janeiro on Monday for talks on climate change, ongoing wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon, and more, at a forum that highlighted differences between world powers but also delivered some successes.

Here are five key takeaways from the summit:

- No climate breakthrough -

Hopes were high that G20 leaders would jumpstart stalled UN climate talks taking place in Azerbaijan.

In their final declaration, however, they merely recognized the need for "substantially scaling up climate finance from billions to trillions from all sources."

Crucially, they did not say who would provide the trillions.

They also did not reiterate a commitment made at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai last year for a "just, orderly, and equitable transition" away from fossil fuels.

"They haven't stepped up to the challenge," Mick Sheldrick, co-founder of the Global Citizen campaign group said.

- Ukraine war -

The war in Ukraine dominated discussions at the G20, a day after the United States gave Kyiv the green light to strike Russian territory with American-supplied long-range missiles.

Russia vowed a "response" if hit.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, who together with Brazil has been pushing for Kyiv to enter peace talks with Russia, urged the G20 to help "cool" the war.

In their final statement, G20 leaders said they welcomed "all relevant and constructive initiatives that support a comprehensive, just, and durable peace" in Ukraine.

While condemning, as at last year's G20 summit, the "threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition," they made no mention of Russian aggression.

- Lebanon, Gaza ceasefire calls -

The leaders of the G20 -- which mixes steadfast Israel allies such as the United States and Argentina with countries like Turkey that are more supportive of Palestinians -- called for "comprehensive" ceasefires in both Gaza and Lebanon.

They said the Gaza ceasefire should be in line with a US-proposed UN resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire in the territory in return for the release of all hostages by Hamas.

It also called for a Lebanon ceasefire "that enables citizens to return safely to their homes on both sides of the Blue Line" that separates Lebanese and Israeli armed forces.

- Tax the super-rich -

The G20 endorsed the idea of cooperating to make sure "ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed," delivering a victory to summit host Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

It said though that such cooperation should be "with full respect to tax sovereignty" and involve "debates around tax principles" as well as coming up with anti-avoidance mechanisms.

An economist specializing in inequalities who was tapped by the Brazilian G20 presidency to write a report on the issue, Gabriel Zucman, hailed the "historic decision."

- Alliance against hunger -

One of the issues dearest to President Lula was forging a global alliance against hunger, and he received an early success by launching that initiative at the start of the summit, getting 82 countries to sign on.

The alliance aims to unite international efforts to provide financing in the campaign against hunger, and to replicate programs that have proved successful in some countries.

The goal is to reach half a billion people by the end of the decade, reducing what Lula -- who grew up in poverty -- has called a preventable "scourge that shames humanity."

Floodwaters reaching more than four meters high swamped thousands of houses in the storm-battered northern Philippines on Tuesday after rivers overflowed following heavy rain and a dam release.

Typhoon Man-yi drenched swaths of the Philippines over the weekend, swelling the Cagayan river and tributaries, and forcing the release of water from Magat Dam.

The Cagayan broke its banks, spilling water over already sodden farmland and communities, affecting tens of thousands of people.

Buildings, lamp posts and trees poked through a lake of brown water in Tuguegarao city in Cagayan province where provincial disaster official Ian Valdepenas said floodwaters reached more than four meters (14 feet) in some places.

"We experienced very heavy rains two days ago, but the flood just started to rise when Magat Dam started releasing huge volumes of water," Valdepenas told AFP.

"Plus, our land is already saturated because of the consecutive typhoons hitting the area."

Man-yi was the sixth major storm in a month to strike the Philippines, which have left at least 171 people dead and thousands homeless, as well as wiped out crops and livestock.

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Southeast Asian nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people, but it is rare for multiple such weather events to take place in a small window.

-- Roofs of houses --

In the neighbouring province of Isabela, Jun Montereal of the Ilagan city disaster preparedness committee said 30,000 people were still affected by flooding.

But the situation was slowly improving.

"The flood is subsiding now little by little, it's slower because the land is already saturated but we are way past the worst," Montereal told AFP.

"We are really hoping that the weather will continue to be fair so the water can go down. I think the water will completely subside in three days," he said.

"I can now see the roofs of houses that I wasn't able to see before because of the floods."

Carlo Ablan, who helps oversee operations at Magat Dam, said three gates were open as of Tuesday morning to release water from the dam.

"If the weather continues to be good, we are expecting that we will only have one gate open this afternoon," Ablan said.

Ablan said flooding in Tuguegarao city was not only caused by water from Magat Dam -- other tributaries of the Cagayan river were also likely to blame.

Valdepenas said authorities in Tuguegarao were waiting for floodwaters to subside more before sending people back to their homes.

"This might start subsiding within today," he said.

More than a million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi, which struck the Philippines as a super typhoon before significantly weakening as it swept over the mountains of the main island of Luzon.

Man-yi dumped heavy rain, smashed flimsy buildings, knocked out power and claimed at least eight lives.

Climate change is increasing the intensity of storms, leading to heavier rains, flash floods and stronger gusts.

A Hong Kong court on Tuesday jailed all 45 defendants convicted of subversion in the city's largest national security trial, with "mastermind" Benny Lai receiving the longest term of 10 years.

International condemnation was swift, with Western countries and rights groups slamming the sentencing as evidence of the erosion of political freedoms in the city since Beijing imposed a security law in 2020.

Tai's sentence was the longest yet handed out under the law, which was brought in to quash dissent after massive, sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.

His 44 co-defendants were sentenced to shorter terms beginning from four years and two months.

All were charged with subversion after holding an informal poll in 2020 as part of a strategy to win a pro-democracy electoral majority.

The group is made up of some of the most prominent figures of Hong Kong's once-diverse political opposition.

Among them, former student leader Joshua Wong shouted "I love Hong Kong, bye bye!" to the packed courtroom as he was led away after sentencing.

Wong gained international prominence in 2014 as a driving force behind protests known as the Umbrella Movement, which landed him on the cover of Time magazine when he was just a teenager.

- 'The wicked shall perish' -

More than 200 people had queued in drizzle outside the court since dawn for a public seat.

Inside, the 45 defendants were crammed into the dock, occasionally waving to the public.

Many have already spent more than 1,300 days in jail.

Outside after the sentencing, the mother of defendant Hendrick Lui silently held up a placard reading: "The righteous shall live, the wicked shall perish."

She was taken away in a police van within seconds, according to video footage from Hong Kong media.

The second-longest sentence of seven years and nine months was handed to young activist Owen Chow.

Pro-democracy politicians Au Nok-hin, Andrew Chiu and Ben Chung were singled out as organizers, but received lesser sentences after testifying against Tai.

"Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, the 68-year-old co-founder of the city's last standing opposition party, received a term of six years and nine months.

His wife and party leader Chan Po-ying told AFP that it was "within our expectations".

"It is what it is -- no matter (whether) I laugh or I cry, so I choose to laugh a bit," she said.

Also included in the group are former lawmakers like Claudia Mo and Eddie Chu, and former journalist Gwyneth Ho.

- 'Refused to be tamed' -

Former district councillor Leticia Wong told AFP that she thought the sentences were "encouraging people to plead guilty and testify against their peers".

"For those who refused to be tamed, punishment is obviously heavier," Wong said.

Western countries and international rights groups condemned the trial.

Australia's government said it was "gravely concerned" after dual citizen Gordon Ng received a sentence of seven years and three months, and said it would continue to advocate for his "best interests".

The United States and Britain also condemned the sentences of the 45 activists.

China responded that such Western criticism "seriously desecrates and tramples on the spirit of the rule of law", and warned against interference.

International NGO Human Rights Watch said the sentences show "how fast Hong Kong's civil liberties and judicial independence have nosedived".

Another closely watched national security trial will see a key development on Wednesday when jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai testifies in his collusion trial.

China and Hong Kong have repeatedly pushed back against criticisms, saying the security law restored order following the 2019 protests.

Hong Kong's security minister Chris Tang said Tuesday's sentences "reflected the severity of the crime", but added the government would decide whether to appeal individual sentences.

- 'Constitutional crisis' -

Forty-seven people were initially charged after they were arrested in January 2021.

Thirty-one pleaded guilty, and 16 stood a 118-day trial last year, with 14 convicted and two acquitted in May.

The aim of the July 2020 primary was to pick a cross-party shortlist of pro-democracy candidates to increase their electoral prospects.

If a majority was achieved, the plan was to force the government to meet the 2019 protesters' demands -- including universal suffrage -- by threatening to indiscriminately veto the budget.

Three senior judges handpicked by the government to try security cases said that would have caused a "constitutional crisis".

The subversion charge could have carried a sentence of up to life in prison.

Spain's King Felipe VI said Tuesday he and his wife Queen Letizia will next week return to the epicenter of the country's catastrophic floods, where survivors heckled and hurled mud at them during their last visit.

"We do not yet have the date or the itinerary, but yes it will take place," the king told reporters during a visit to Betera in the eastern Valencia region where he met with soldiers taking part in the relief work following the October 29 disaster.

"From the outset, we wanted to show our willingness to be present in various ways in all the places affected," added Felipe, dressed in military fatigues.

Palace sources had told AFP earlier on Tuesday that the royal couple will travel "early next week" to the Valencia region, which has suffered almost all the destruction and 222 deaths.

Furious residents chanting "murderers" in the ruined Valencia region town of Paiporta pelted the couple and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez with projectiles and mud on November 3.

While Sanchez and the Valencia region's leader Carlos Mazon were swiftly escorted away, the royals braved the chaos to speak with flood victims.

They have promised to travel to the town of Chiva where their planned visit on the same day was cancelled.

The unrest in Paiporta expressed widespread anger at political leaders for their perceived failure to adequately prepare for and respond to Spain's worst floods in a generation.

The king said he wants to approach his next visit to the affected area "taking into account the circumstances we are living through here, and aware that each of us must be in our place".

A U.S. lawmaker critical of COP29 host Azerbaijan said he was nearly assaulted when he attended the climate talks in what he called an orchestrated attack by the government.

"It was no question that if it wasn't for the fact that security that the embassy hired protected me, I would have been in the hospital," Representative Frank Pallone told reporters on his return to Washington on Monday.

Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey who is an outspoken supporter of Azerbaijan's rival Armenia, said he first sensed trouble when he was confronted by hostile and seemingly coordinated questions by local media during the UN-led climate conference taking place in a Baku stadium.

"It was sort of like an exercise in what despots do," Pallone said.

"In Azerbaijan there is no free media. The media is totally controlled by the state," he said.

"You know this was orchestrated by the government. That's what this was all about. In order to make a point that we don't want you here and we don't want you articulating concerns that you have," he said.

Pallone said around 50 "thugs" then waited for him outside his hotel, with the local police refusing to take him through a back entrance but the US embassy-provided security shielding him.

"It was clear that they wanted to assault me," he said.

Pallone said he was told he was unwelcome at a meeting between the US congressional delegation and President Ilham Aliyev, although fellow lawmakers relayed his concerns.

Senator Ed Markey said he also encountered harassment and needed a bodyguard even inside his hotel, although he said Pallone faced worse.

Markey, a Democrat who is a leading climate advocate in the US Congress, accused energy producer Azerbaijan of intensifying repression and "greenwashing" both its climate and human rights record by holding COP29.

"We can't just allow these authoritarian petrostates to ignore both the human rights and the climate threats that have to be addressed in a comprehensive way," Markey said.

Markey said he met a senior advisor to Aliyev and urged a release of political prisoners as well as "good-faith" negotiations with Armenia, a year after Azerbaijan seized back the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Aliyev set off an uproar last week by using his COP29 platform to attack France, the Netherlands and the European Union, which have all criticized him.

The Council of Europe commissioner for human rights in a letter published Monday said Azerbaijan has imprisoned activists and journalists merely due to their work and opposition to the authorities.

Dozens of lawmakers from across the world called Tuesday for the immediate and unconditional release of pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, before he is due to give evidence in his collusion trial in Hong Kong.

Parliamentarians and foreign affairs experts from at least 22 countries and the European Parliament signed an open letter, expressing concern about the 76-year-old media tycoon's incarceration.

"His health is deteriorating. He has been held in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison in Hong Kong for almost four years. This is inhumane," they wrote, calling the charges against him "trumped up".

The letter's release came on the same day a Hong Kong court jailed all 45 defendants convicted in the city's largest trial under a sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.

The separate charges against Lai, who founded the now-shuttered popular tabloid Apple Daily, revolve around the newspaper's publications, which supported the pro-democracy protests and criticized Beijing's leadership.

Lai, who is a British citizen, denies two counts of "conspiracy to collusion" and one count of "conspiracy to publish seditious publications".

But the parliamentarians said his trial was "tainted with unfairness", involving "hand-picked judges" and evidence allegedly obtained by torture.

"On the eve of the recommencement of his trial, we urgently demand Jimmy Lai's immediate and unconditional release," they added, warning China that "the world is watching as the rule of law, media freedom and human rights in Hong Kong are eroded and undermined".

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer raised Lai's case with Chinese President Xi Jinping when they met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil on Monday.

Some 30 signatories were from the UK, which handed back sovereignty of Hong Kong to China in 1997 but which has been increasingly critical of the authorities in the territory for its crackdown on political dissent.

In a new book set to be released this week, Pope Francis I endorsed a genocide investigation into Israel's war on Gaza—which has killed or maimed more than 150,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened millions more over the past 13 months.

"In the Middle East, where the open doors of nations like Jordan or Lebanon continue to be a salvation for millions of people fleeing conflicts in the region: I am thinking above all of those who leave Gaza in the midst of the famine that has struck their Palestinian brothers and sisters given the difficulty of getting food and aid into their territory," the pontiff wrote in his latest book, which goes on sale in some countries on November 19.

"According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide," the Pope added. "It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies."

The Pope's words echo last week's finding by a United Nations expert panel that Israel's annihilation of Gaza is "consistent with the characteristics of genocide."

The International Court of Justice—a U.N. organ—is currently weighing a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs as well as hundreds of groups and experts around the world.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three former Hamas leaders assassinated by Israel, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extermination.

Many jurists, scholars, and other experts—including some of Israel's leading Holocaust historians—have called Israel's policies and actions in Gaza genocide. Early in the war, Raz Segal—an Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey—called Israel's Gaza onslaught "a textbook case of genocide."

Numerous world leaders and other international officials, artists, entertainers, and others—including half of Democratic voters in the United States surveyed in May—also agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Many Palestinian Christians have been killed, injured, or otherwise harmed by Israeli forces during the bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza. With just 800 to 1,000 people believed remaining in Gaza, members of the world's oldest Christian community warned early in the war that they were "under threat of extinction."

In their most infamous attack on Gaza Christians, Israeli forces bombed the 12th century Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, Gaza's oldest, in October 2023, killing 18 Palestinians including numerous children. Among the victims were two women and an infant related to former Republican U.S. Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan.

After an Israeli sniper fatally shot an elderly woman and her daughter on the grounds of a Catholic church in Gaza City last December, Pope Francis condemned what he called an act of "terrorism."

Amid the death and destruction wrought by Israel's assault on Gaza, last December's Christmas celebrations were canceled in Bethlehem, the purported birthplace of Jesus Christ.

"How can we celebrate when we feel this war—this genocide—that is taking place could resume at any moment?" asked Palestinian Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac at the time.

An Indigenous lawmaker was censured by Australia's parliament Monday for heckling King Charles about the legacy of European settlement during his October visit to Canberra.

The censure carries no practical punishment but passed the Senate Monday with 46 votes in favor and 12 against.

During the king's visit to parliament, independent senator Lidia Thorpe screamed: "This is not your land, you are not my king," decrying what she said was a "genocide" of Indigenous Australians by European settlers.

She also turned her back on the king as dignitaries stood for the national anthem.

The censure motion condemned Thorpe's actions as "disruptive and disrespectful".

It also said the Senate no longer regarded it "appropriate" for Thorpe to be a member of any delegation "during the life of this parliament".

A censure motion is a symbolic gesture when parliamentarians are dissatisfied with the behaviour of one of their own.

Thorpe -- sporting a gold chain with 'Not My King' around her neck -- said she did not "give a damn" about the censure and would most likely use the document as "kindling" later in the week.

She told national broadcaster ABC she would "do it again" if the monarch returned.

"I will resist colonization in this country. I swear my allegiance to the real sovereigns of these lands: First Peoples are the real sovereigns," she said.

Green Senator Mehreen Faruqi voted against Thorpe's censure, saying the lawmaker was telling Australia's history "the way she wants to".

Thorpe is known for her attention-grabbing political stunts and fierce opposition to the monarchy.

When she was sworn into office in 2022, Thorpe raised her right fist as she begrudgingly swore to serve Queen Elizabeth II, who was then Australia's head of state.

Australia was a British colony for more than 100 years, during which time thousands of Aboriginal Australians were killed and entire communities displaced.

The country gained de facto independence in 1901, but has never become a fully-fledged republic.

King Charles is the current head of state.

The issue of a republic reared its head during the king's visit Down Under earlier this year, but the issue remains a political non-starter.

A recent poll showed about a third of Australians would like to ditch the monarchy, a third would keep it and a third are ambivalent.

In 1999, Australians narrowly voted against removing the queen, amid a row over whether her replacement would be chosen by members of parliament, not the public.

Police in central Thailand said they barricaded themselves into their own station over the weekend, after a menacing mob of 200 escaped monkeys ran riot on the town.

The human inhabitants of Lopburi have long suffered from a growing and aggressive monkey population and authorities have built special enclosures to contain groups of the unruly residents.

But on Saturday around 200 of the primates broke out and rampaged through town, with one posse descending on a local police station.

"We've had to make sure doors and windows are closed to prevent them from entering the building for food," police captain Somchai Seedee told AFP on Monday.

He was concerned the marauders could destroy property including police documents, he added.

Traffic cops and officers on guard duty were being called in to fend off the visitors, the Lopburi police said on Facebook on Sunday.

Around a dozen of the intruders were still perched proudly on the roof of the police station on Monday, photos from local media showed.

Down in the streets, hapless police and local authorities were working to round up rogue individuals, luring them away from residential areas with food.

While Thailand is an overwhelmingly Buddhist nation, it has long assimilated Hindu traditions and lore from its pre-Buddhist era.

As a result monkeys are afforded a special place in Thai hearts thanks to the heroic Hindu monkey god Hanuman, who helped Rama rescue his beloved wife Sita from the clutches of an evil demon king.

Thousands of the fearless primates rule the streets around the Pra Prang Sam Yod temple in the centre of Lopburi.

The town has been laying on an annual feast of fruit for its population of macaques since the late 1980s, part religious tradition and part tourist attraction.

But their growing numbers, vandalism and mob fights have made an uneasy coexistence with their human neighbors almost intolerable.

Lopburi authorities have tried quelling instances of human-macaque clashes with sterilization and relocation programs.

Thirteen Bangladeshi former top government officials arrested after the revolution in August appeared in court Monday accused of "enabling massacres", with prosecutors repeating extradition demands for exiled ex-leader Sheikh Hasina.

Dozens of Hasina's allies have been taken into custody since her regime collapsed, accused of involvement in a police crackdown that killed more than 700 people during the unrest that led to her ouster.

Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam said the 13 defendants, who included 11 former ministers, a judge and an ex-government secretary, were accused of command responsibility for the deadly crackdown on the student-led protest that ousted the regime.

Hasina, who fled to old ally India by helicopter on August 5, was also due in court in Dhaka on Monday to face charges of "massacres, killings, and crimes against humanity", but she remained a fugitive in exile.

"We have produced 13 defendants today, including 11 former ministers, a bureaucrat, and a judge," Islam, the chief prosecutor of Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal, told reporters.

"They are complicit in enabling massacres by participating in planning, inciting violence, ordering law enforcement officers to shoot on sight, and obstructing efforts to prevent a genocide."

Around half a dozen lawyers supported the defendants, who were brought from custody and led into court surrounded by a ring of security forces to separate them from the large crowd outside.

Hasina's 15-year tenure saw widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killings of her political opponents.

The charges the 13 face are so far limited to the police crackdown on student-led protests, but Islam requested more time to compile evidence stretching back further.

"The crimes that led to mass murders and genocide have occurred over the past 16 years across the country," he told reporters.

The court gave prosecutors until December 17 to submit their investigation report.

- 'Seeking assistance' -

The defendants listened to the charges read to them but were not asked yet to give a plea.

At one point, former industry minister Kamal Ahmed Majumdar stood up and spoke, appealing to the judge that he wanted "to say something", an AFP reporter in the court heard.

He was not allowed to speak further.

Others in court included once powerful ex-law minister Anisul Huq, former Supreme Court judge Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik, and former energy adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury.

Former social affairs minister Dipu Moni is the only woman among the 13.

Islam said efforts are being made to bring 77-year-old Hasina to Dhaka for trial, a day after interim leader Muhammad Yunus said Bangladesh was seeking her extradition.

Islam said they had contacted Interpol "seeking assistance in arresting her, as she has committed crimes against humanity".

Red notices issued by the global police body alert law enforcement agencies worldwide about fugitives.

India is a member of Interpol, but the red notice does not mean New Delhi must hand Hasina over as each country applies their own laws on whether an arrest should be made.

Schools in Beirut were closed on Monday after Israeli strikes on the Lebanese capital killed six people including Hezbollah's spokesman, the latest in a string of top militant targets slain in the war.

Israel escalated its bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds in late September, vowing to secure its northern border with Lebanon to allow Israelis displaced by cross-border fire to return home.

Sunday's strikes hit densely populated districts of central Beirut that had so far been spared the violence engulfing other areas of Lebanon.

Six people were killed in the strikes, according to Lebanese health ministry figures, including Hezbollah media relations chief Mohammed Afif, the group and Israel's military said.

The strikes prompted the education ministry to shut schools and higher education institutions in the Beirut area for two days.

Children and young people around Lebanon have been heavily impacted by the war, which has seen schools around the country turned into shelters for the displaced.

Israel widened the focus of its war from Gaza to Lebanon in late September, nearly a year into the conflict in Gaza that was sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack.

In support of its Palestinian ally, Hezbollah launched low-intensity strikes on Israel after the attack, forcing about 60,000 Israelis to flee their homes.

With Hamas weakened but not crushed, Israel escalated its battle against Hezbollah, vowing to fight until victory.

Lebanese authorities say more than 3,480 people have been killed since October last year, with most casualties recorded since September.

Israel says 48 soldiers have been killed fighting Hezbollah.

Israeli strikes have killed senior Hezbollah officials including its leader Hassan Nasrallah in late September.

The group's spokesman Afif was part of Nasrallah's inner circle, and one of the group's few officials to engage with the press.

Another strike hit a busy shopping district of Beirut, sparking a huge blaze that engulfed part of a building and several shops nearby.

Lebanon's National News Agency said the fire had largely been extinguished by Monday morning, noting it had caused diesel fuel tanks to explode.

It also reported new strikes early Monday on locations around south Lebanon, long a stronghold of Hezbollah.

Israel's military told AFP it had hit more than 200 targets in Lebanon over 36 hours, including in Beirut's southern suburbs, Hezbollah's main bastion.

Lebanon's military, which is not a party to the conflict, said Israel "directly targeted" an army centre in south Lebanon on Sunday, killing two soldiers.

Israel's military said about 20 projectiles crossed from Lebanon into Israel, and some were intercepted.

Lebanon last week said it was reviewing a US truce proposal in the Israel-Hezbollah war, as Hamas said it was ready for a ceasefire in Gaza.

- 'Continuous shooting' -

So far, however, there has been no sign of the wars abating.

The Israeli military kept up its campaign in Gaza over the weekend, where civil defense rescuers said strikes on Sunday killed dozens of people.

Vowing to stop Hamas from regrouping in northern Gaza near the border, Israel on October 6 began an air and ground operation in Jabalia and then expanded it to Beit Lahia.

On Sunday, Gaza's civil defence agency said 34 people were killed, including children, and dozens were missing after an Israeli air strike hit a five-story residential building in Beit Lahia.

"The chances of rescuing more wounded are decreasing because of the continuous shooting and artillery shelling," civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

Weighed down with backpacks, many like Omar Abdel Aal were fleeing, often on foot, through dusty streets.

"They bombarded the houses and completely destroyed Beit Lahia," he said.

Israel's military said there were "ongoing terrorist activities in the area of Beit Lahia" and several strikes were directed at militant targets there.

"We emphasise that there have been continuous efforts to evacuate the civilian population from the active war zone in the area," the military said.

The United Nations and others have condemned humanitarian conditions in northern Gaza, with the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees last week calling the situation "catastrophic".

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza on Sunday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,846, a majority civilians, figures that the United Nations consider reliable.

Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

NBC on Saturday reported that Donald Trump is putting together a list of current and former military officers and exploring whether they can be court martialed, and the news gave one former Republican insider goosebumps.

Tara Setmayer, a former senior advisor for anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project and a former Republican congressional staffer, appeared on MSNBC over the weekend.

Host Jonathan Capehart asked Setmayer, also a co-founder of the Seneca Project, about the reported development.

ALSO READ: Why Trump voters should be held accountable for their choice

"You know, when you read that in the breaking news, I, literally, got goosebumps, because those of us who have been warning about this, we are apoplectic," Setmayer said. "We don't want to say, we told you so, but we told you so!"

She continued, saying, "I mean, this is what Donald Trump said he was going to do."

"This is what he has been telegraphing for years, and it is just so frustrating that now, all of a sudden, there is pearl clutching about this, as if we did not know this is what was coming," Setmayer added. "Now, this is an example of what we have seen in other authoritarian regimes, where they want to trot out military officers, or anyone that stands up to them, and makes an example of them. It happened with Pinochet. It has happened in other regimes in the past. Yes, I'm calling it a regime."

Watch below or click here.

If President-elect Donald Trump is serious about hitting all Chinese goods with tariffs of 60 percent or higher, experts warn it could lead to all-out economic warfare that would be particularly damaging to two key swing states that Trump flipped in 2024.

CNBC reports that the U.S.-China Business Council, in conjunction with Oxford Economics, estimates that a large-scale "economic war" with China could result in "permanent loss of revenue and pressure businesses to slash jobs and investment plans," costing the economy nearly one million jobs next year alone.

"The report projected that Nevada, Florida and Arizona would be among the states hardest hit by such tariffs due to their economic reliance on consumer demand," CNBC writes. "Manufacturing states such as Indiana, Kansas, Michigan and Ohio would also be vulnerable, the Oxford report found."

ALSO READ: 'Seeds of his demise': Reporter says things are about to get 'worse for Trump

One area that China could target that could be particularly troublesome would be American agricultural products, as the country has already been looking for ways to lessen its dependency on products such as American soy, according to the report.

"If alternative supplies are available, China may well shift away from American farmers where they can,” explained James McGregor, a longtime business consultant on China.

He also warned that China is well positioned to simply shove American firms out the door via regulatory squeezes should it be given reason to do so.

"We will likely see retaliation against American companies in China where they could be step-by-step squeezed out of the China market and replaced," he said.

The deaths of 23 children in Johannesburg this year from suspected food poisoning has ignited anger in South Africa against foreign nationals who run small corner shops known as spazas.

There is still police tape around a now-closed spaza shop in Soweto's Naledi area that allegedly sold snacks to six young children who died from poisoning in October.

The tragedy angered local residents who attacked and looted the spaza and hounded out the shopkeeper, reportedly an Ethiopian national. Even the person who was renting out the premises fled in fear.

While an autopsy revealed that a pesticide had caused the deaths, a link to the shop has not been officially established.

As similar cases were reported in other areas, the outcry mounted, leading authorities to launch raids on foreign-run spazas to check compliance with laws and regulations.

Several have been forced to shut and the shopkeepers -- generally from Ethiopia, India, Pakistan or Somali -- have fled.

Six spazas were closed at Olievenhoutbosch outside the capital Pretoria last week for irregularities, municipal council official Sarah Mabotsa said.

"They're selling expired food, they're selling skin products, they're selling meat, everything is in one shop," she charged.

- 'Operation Dudula' -

As the continent's most industrialized economy, South Africa is a prime destination for people seeking work even though its own unemployment rate is around 32 percent.

The competition has triggered mistrust and even violence.

If authorities don't step in, a xenophobic vigilante group known as Operation Dudula -- which means "push back" in Zulu -- often does.

In Naledi, efforts by Dudula recently saw the foreign shopkeepers at six spazas replaced with South African nationals.

"We have chased the foreigners. Foreigners were running the shop before and we kicked them out," one of the new shopkeepers, Maphoka Mohalanwani, said proudly.

The recent spate of food poisonings is without doubt "related to the foreigners", the 54-year-old said.

"When our kids eat chips from the streets, they do not die... they are dying because of their poison," said Mohalanwani.

The former cashier was selected for the job by Operation Dudula, which awards some finance to South Africans to take over from foreign nationals running spaza shops.

"Some stores were closed down by officials because they don't respect the laws of this country," the head of Operation Dudula, Zandile Dabula, told AFP.

And for those that reopened, "we went back to go and make sure that they closed again," she said.

Even politicians have made outright calls for all spaza shops to be run by South Africans.

- Eliminating competition -

The tragic wave of deaths of the young children has gripped South Africa, with speculation running wild in the absence of proven facts about what really caused their deaths.

Some people believe that foreigners are deliberately setting out to poison South Africans; others say the outcry is a manufactured ploy to get the spazas and their profits back into the hands of locals.

"We don't know what is causing these things (cases)," said Somali national Zachariah Salah at one spaza in White City, Soweto.

It was not even clear if the claims of poisonings were genuine or not, he said. Either way, "it's tragic for us."

Loren Landau, who studies migration at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said attacks against foreign-owned shops were "really about eliminating competition for business.

"If you try to shut down South African businesses, people would protest," he said. But "you can go after a foreigner, no one will protest."

Back in White City, one of the spazas that shut down in the initial flare of anger a few weeks back has reopened, to the relief of locals who rely on their corner shops.

"When it was shut, I had to go to ... malls that are very far," said Nomsa Skosan, 63, who was browsing the aisles of cereal, frozen food and household items.

"If what they sell in these stores is as bad as they say, why loot them?"

French prosecutors demanded Wednesday that far-right leader Marine Le Pen receive a jail sentence and be banned from public office for five years over charges she embezzled European Parliament funds.

The prosecution made the request in a Paris court where Le Pen and other defendants from her National Rally party are on trial accused of creating fake jobs at the EU parliament. She denies the charges.

If granted by the court, the ban would exclude the 56-year-old from running in France's 2027 presidential election.

The prosecution demanded the ban be effective immediately, even if the defense team appeals. The National Rally, like other far-right parties around Europe, is riding high following a strong performance in European elections in June.

The prosecution demanded that all of the two dozen defendants be excluded from running from public office.

It demanded a five-year jail sentence for Le Pen, calling for at least two years of that to be a "convertible" custodial sentence, meaning there would be a possibility of partial release.

The prosecutors also demanded the RN be fined two million euros ($2.1 million).

Le Pen promptly denounced the prosecutors' motion as excessive, branding it an "outrage" and accusing prosecutors of trying to "ruin the (RN) party".

"I think the prosecutors' wish is to deprive the French people of the ability to vote for who they want," she said.

The alleged fake jobs system, which was first flagged in 2015, covers parliamentary assistant contracts between 2004 and 2016.

Prosecutors say the assistants worked exclusively for the party outside parliament.

Addressing the trial last month, Le Pen said she was innocent.

"I have absolutely no sense of having committed the slightest irregularity, or the slightest illegal act," she told the court.

(AFP)

Iran provided written assurance to president Joe Biden's administration weeks before the election that it wouldn't try to kill Donald Trump.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Iran delivered the message Oct. 14 in response to a private written warning the previous month that U.S. officials say reflected the administration's public message that threats against the Republican nominee were a top-line national security issue and that any attempt to kill him would be treated as an act of war.

Iran has vowed revenge against the former president for ordering the January 2020 drone strike that killed military leader Qassem Soleimani, and former Trump administration officials Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Brian Hook still have Secret Service protection due to threats on their lives from Tehran.

ALSO READ: A second reign of terror: Inside Trump’s blueprint for home raids

The Justice Department revealed last week that Iranian agents plotted to assassinate Trump before the election as part of an ongoing campaign against him, and in August federal prosecutors charged a Pakistani man with links to Iran with plotting to kill him.

A Secret Service sniper killed a 20-year-old gunman who fired gunshots at Trump at a July campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and a 58-year-old man was arrested in September and charged with plotting to assassinate the once-and-future president, although investigators say Iran has not links to either of those cases.

Iran has recently downplayed claims that it was trying to kill Trump, who won re-election last week, and described allegations by U.S. officials as a “third-rate comedy.”

Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner will likely play a pivotal role in the incoming administration's Middle East efforts without having a formal position in the government, according to diplomats and political allies.

Kushner was heavily involved with the former president's Middle East diplomacy in his first term and established personal relationships with leaders throughout the region that he has maintained since Trump left office, and sources told CNN those ties are important.

“Friendships are forever in this region,” said one Israeli source who dealt with the first Trump administration. “My assumption is that his role is much more in his hands than anybody else’s.”

ALSO READ: A second reign of terror: Inside Trump’s blueprint for home raids

But some U.S. diplomats are concerned about Kushner's closeness with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and the $2 billion his investment fund, Affinity Partners, received from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and diplomatic sources expressed concerns Trump would prioritize his family’s financial interests over the nation's interest.

“Prioritizing Saudi Arabia’s prosperity because it could help the Trump family is a major concern for U.S. diplomats,” said a current U.S. diplomat.

Kushner also enjoys a close family relationship to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and spoke earlier this year about the development potential for Gaza's "valuable" waterfront property, which set off alarm bells for some concerned about the region.

“What we are seeing is an active and bloody conflict, with all that people in the Arab world see is babies being killed," aid Ghaith Al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute. "Those comments were disturbing because Kushner was coming at this with very cold and materialistic language which is very jarring for a people craving empathy. It was very, very tone deaf."

While diplomats anticipate that Kushner will play an important but informal role in the president-elect's Middle East efforts, Trump has also picked former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as the next ambassador to Israel, and real estate developer Steve Witkoff will lead the administration's overall efforts in the region.

“Does Witkoff have an ego? That is the key question,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator at the State Department. “If he wants to succeed and does not establish working relationship with Kushner and [likely secretary of state Marco] Rubio he is making a gigantic mistake.”

Foreign diplomats and international relations experts are watching Donald Trump's slow roll-out of his proposed cabinet with a mixture of cautious relief and utter horror, according to a report from Politico.

According to the report, the choice of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as secretary of state was greeted with faint praise because he has a proven history as the senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

On the other hand, Trump's selection of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is causing no small amount of alarm due to her past cozying up to authoritarian strongmen both while she was serving in Congress and after.

ALSO READ: A second reign of terror: Inside Trump’s blueprint for home raids

According to Politico's Nicholas Vinocur and Clea Caulcutt, diplomatic observers were lulled into a sense of relief by the president-elect's early picks until he announced Gabbard at which point alarm bells went off.

"Gabbard, a former congresswoman who is known for amplifying conspiracy theories, meeting with Syrian leader Bashar Assad and embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin, was viewed as a particularly stunning choice," the report stated with Nathalie Loiseau, former French Europe minister under President Emmanuel Macron, commenting, "This is really terrifying."

Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who heads the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Security and Defence, issued a bleak warning, "The time of European restraint and the hope that the USA would protect us is over."

Viewing Trump's overall picks, one European diplomat offered, "I’m not sure whether it’s really possible to make any sensible predictions about the direction of this administration based on the staff picks."

Politico is reporting there is "little optimism" over Gabbard handling sensitive intel while heading DNI.

François Heisbourg, senior adviser for Europe at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote, "This is seriously big and bad. I hope the Senate will block her confirmation — but I don’t expect that to happen.”

You can read more right here.

Donald Trump's political career has closely tracked the trajectories of autocratic leaders Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin, whose rise to power offer a "chillingly clear" picture of where his second term could lead, according to historians.

The former president and his supporters are tremendously hostile to civic institutions like the judiciary, the media, universities, many nonprofits and even some religious groups, and Trump will likely follow the lead of those autocratic leaders in Hungary and Russia by sidelining experts, regulators and other civil servants, wrote New York Times columnist M. Gessen.

"When Orban was re-elected, he carried out what [Hungarian historian Balint] Magyar calls an 'autocratic breakthrough,' changing laws and practices so that he could not be dislodged again," Gessen wrote. "It helped that he had a supermajority in parliament. Trump, similarly, spent four years attacking the Biden administration, and the vote that brought it to the White House, as fraudulent, and positioning himself as the only true voice of the people. He is also returning with a power trifecta — the presidency and both houses of Congress. He too can quickly reshape American government in his image."

ALSO READ: A second reign of terror: Inside Trump’s blueprint for home raids

Magyar described the disorientation that accompanied Orban's return to power after eight years spent consolidating support from his base, and said he quickly unleashed an agenda that gathered autocratic powers for himself – which Gessen expects Trump to attempt from the start.

"We all remember it from Trump’s first term, this sense of everything happening all at once and the utter impossibility of focusing on the existentially threatening, or distinguishing it from the trivial — if that distinction even exists," Gessen wrote. "It’s not just what the autocrats do to stage their breakthrough, it’s how they do it: passing legislation (or signing executive orders) fast, without any discussion, sometimes late at night, in batches, all the while denigrating and delegitimizing any opposition."

Trump starts his second term with a sprawling road map for transforming the U.S. government to reflect his priorities, even if many of the policies conflict one another.

"Much has been written about Project 2025 as a sort of legislative blueprint for the second Trump presidency," Gessen wrote. "Consistent with Magyar’s theory of autocracy, the document is more a reflection of the clan of people who empower Trump and are empowered by him than an ideological document. It is not a blueprint for coherent legislative change, but it is a blueprint still: a blueprint for trampling the system of government as it is currently constituted, a blueprint of destruction."

Wars have spread and intensified, with far-reaching impacts on global economic growth and food security, according to latest Conflict Intensity Index

The proportion of the world engulfed by conflict has grown 65% – equivalent to nearly double the size of India – over the past three years, according to a new report.

Ukraine, Myanmar, the Middle East and a “conflict corridor” around Africa’s Sahel region have seen wars and unrest spread and intensify since 2021, according to the latest Conflict Intensity Index (CII), published by risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft.

Woman says French-Algerian writer’s prize-winning Houris uses her story as she told it to therapist Aicha Dehdouh

Two complaints have been filed in Algeria against the French-Algerian author Kamel Daoud, the winner of France’s most prestigious literary award, and his wife, a therapist, alleging that they used a patient’s life story as the basis for his prize-winning novel.

The writer, the first Algerian novelist to be awarded the Prix Goncourt, won this year’s prize for his novel Houris, a fictional account of a young woman who lost her voice when an Islamist cut her throat during the country’s brutal 1992-2002 civil war.

Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud had been convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity

The international criminal court has sentenced an al-Qaida-linked extremist leader to 10 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out when he headed the Islamic police in Timbuktu in Mali, west Africa.

Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud was convicted in June of torture, religious persecution and other inhumane acts. Judges found he was a “key figure” in a reign of terror after Islamic extremist rebels overran the ancient desert city in 2012.

Furore over whether Chidimma Adetshina was really South African led to invitation to represent Nigeria

A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country.

Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and came runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjær Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night.

Police say 350-400 people have stayed in Stilfontein mine to avoid arrest after minister vowed to ‘smoke them out’

South African authorities are assessing whether it is safe to rescue potentially thousands of illegal miners who may be trapped underground, after police stopped food, water and medicine being delivered to them about two weeks ago to try to force the miners to the surface.

A police spokesperson, Athlenda Mathe, insisted to reporters on Tuesday that the miners were not trapped in the abandoned goldmine in Stilfontein, a town about 100 miles south-west of Johannesburg, but rather staying underground to avoid being arrested.

Group were held after a meeting about what mining firm referred to as unsubstantiated claims regarding taxes and levies

An Australian goldmining company has agreed to pay $160m ($A247m, £126m) to Mali’s government after the west African country’s junta detained its chief executive and two other employees.

Resolute Mining’s chief executive, Terence Holohan, and the other two employees were detained on 8 November in Mali’s capital, Bamako, at the end of a meeting with government officials over tax and other state claims that the miner had previously said were “unsubstantiated”.

Randy Boissonnault to ‘step away from cabinet’ after being accused of ‘pretendianism’ and improper business dealings

Canada’s employment minister has resigned from the cabinet after weeks of scrutiny over his business dealings and his shifting claims of Indigenous ancestry.

Moments before question period on Wednesday, Justin Trudeau’s office said Randy Boissonnault would “step away from cabinet effective immediately” and will “focus on clearing the allegations made against him”.

Council in Yukon territory deadlocked, citing the crown’s tarnished relations with Indigenous peoples in the region

The council of a town in Canada’s Yukon territory has been locked for weeks in bureaucratic standstill after its members refused to swear a mandatory oath of allegiance to King Charles, citing the crown’s tarnished relations with Indigenous peoples in the region.

The standoff, which threatens to cost them their seats, reflects a complicated view of the country’s head of state, who lives thousands of miles away, and increasingly serves as a reminder to a history of violence and broken promises

Communities on Paraná River fear privatisation of waterway operations will destroy way of life

River communities in Argentina fear that Javier Milei’s plans to privatise operations on a key shipping route could lead to environmental damage and destroy their way of life.

Since taking office almost a year ago, the self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president has pledged to privatise a number of the state’s assets. The latest is the Paraguay-Paraná waterway – a shipping route of strategic importance for Argentina and its neighbours.

Legacy of African Brazilians honored on 329th anniversary of resistance leader Zumbi’s death by Portuguese forces

During the more than 350 years during which slavery was legal in Brazil, harsh conditions prompted a string of uprisings, often resulting in the establishment of quilombos – independent communities formed by escaped Africans who were formerly enslaved, and their descendants.

None were more prominent than the one known as Palmares, where, in the 17th century, as many as 11,000 people lived in a string of communities across parts of the north-eastern states of Alagoas and Pernambuco.

Antony Blinken makes statement months after President Nicolás Maduro claimed to have won July contest

The US government has recognized Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia as the “president-elect” of the South American country, months after President Nicolás Maduro claimed to have won the July contest.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, recognized González in a post on X in which he also demanded “respect for the will” of Venezuelan voters.

Scholz, Starmer, Trudeau and Macron among leaders who say communique finalized by Lula ‘not strong enough’

Ukraine’s western allies have criticised the final G20 communique as inadequate for failing to highlight Russia’s invasion of its neighbour in 2022 as the conflict enters its 1,000th day.

The final agreed text from the summit in Brazil was significantly weaker than that of the previous year, only highlighting humanitarian suffering in Ukraine and the importance of territorial integrity.

US state department also confirms American’s death in Vang Vieng, where Jones and friend Holly Bowles fell critically ill

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Melbourne teen Bianca Jones has died in a Thai hospital, a week after a suspected methanol poisoning incident in neighbouring Laos that affected her and her best friend.

Anthony Albanese confirmed the 19-year-old’s death on Thursday, after her parents travelled to Thailand to be with her.

Thinktank’s report says Beijing has emerged from Covid-induced lull with a ‘more competitive, politically targeted model’ of engagement in the region

China has renewed efforts to curry favour in Pacific island nations, a new report has found, after charting a “resurgence” in Beijing-backed aid and infrastructure funding.

Over the past decade, China has lavished billions of dollars on Pacific island nations, part of ongoing efforts to build influence in competition with the US and its allies.

Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn is accused of swindling thousands from victims before killing them

A Thai woman alleged to be among the worst serial killers in the kingdom’s history has been convicted and sentenced to death for poisoning a friend with cyanide, in the first of 14 murder trials.

Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn, 36, described as an online gambling addict, is accused of swindling thousands of dollars from her victims before killing them with the chemical.

Detained pro-democracy activist spoke for first time about charges against him under Hong Kong national security law

Jimmy Lai, the detained pro-democracy activist and media mogul who is the target of Hong Kong’s most high-profile national security case, took the stand in court on Wednesday. For the first time since he was detained in December 2020, Lai spoke publicly about the charges against him, for which he faces spending the rest of his life behind bars.

Four years after his arrest, the 77-year-old seemed older and not as strong as he used to be. His first words – swearing an oath on the Bible – were delivered hoarsely.

Founder of Apple Daily paper denies seeking to influence foreign policy against China and says advocating for the independence of Hong Kong was ‘a reality too crazy to think about’

The pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai has said he never tried to influence foreign policy or ask foreign officials to take concrete action on Hong Kong, on his first day giving evidence at his national security trial.

However, he “hoped against hope” that Donald Trump would stop Beijing imposing its national security law on the city, and so sought to have Apple Daily’s coverage of the then president be less critical.

Parents ‘want to ensure no other family’ feels same anguish as Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles remain in Thai hospitals

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The family of one of two teenagers fighting for life in hospital after a suspected methanol poisoning incident in Laos hope authorities work out exactly what happened “as soon as possible”.

Melbourne friends Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, both aged 19, had been staying at a hostel in Vang Vieng, north of the Laos capital Vientiane, when they fell critically ill last week.

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Four-day exclusion zone an improper use of Marine Safety Act, judge rules, despite ‘skilful’ submission from transport minister Jo Haylen

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The New South Wales supreme court has set aside a Minns government decision to cut off access to Newcastle harbour to try to prevent a four-day climate protest.

The court found the notice was invalid after hearing an urgent application from climate activist organisation Rising Tide on Thursday.

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• Sydney train strike: chaotic shutdown averted after 11th-hour crisis talks with union
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New South Wales MPs condemned for ‘part-time’ parliamentary year

Scores of NSW MPs will earn the equivalent of more than $10,000 per sitting week in 2025 after a bid to increase the year’s 16-week calendar was rejected, AAP reports.

To do this, government MPs have to turn up to parliament and discuss matters. Voters won’t be happy that government MPs would prefer to hide in their electorate offices rather than turning up to parliament, where they face scrutiny.

Perth businessman tells AGM he made ‘error in judgment’ as company’s executive pay plans are voted down

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Embattled mining billionaire Chris Ellison has told shareholders he can’t stress enough “how much I hate what I’ve done” after a series of scandals engulfed the company he leads, Mineral Resources.

The Perth businessman has previously acknowledged he failed to disclose revenue generated by overseas entities to tax authorities earlier in his career. A company investigation later found he had also used business resources for his personal benefit.

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NSW government caves to rail union demands to prevent workers striking

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A chaotic two-day shutdown of Sydney’s train network has been averted at the 11th hour after the state government caved to rail union demands to run 24-hour services to prevent workers striking.

However, the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, has warned that despite securing a two-week hiatus on industrial action amid tense negotiations with rail unions over a new pay deal, there is no guarantee that the threat of a city-wide rail shutdown will not recur in a fortnight.

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Extreme heat expected to hit much of South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and inland NSW as central Queensland braces for flooding

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Much of Australia’s east coast will swelter through heatwave conditions this weekend with temperatures set to soar to up to 12C above average, while central Queensland braces for flash flooding after days of soaking rain.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe heatwave warning for much of Victoria and New South Wales stretching out into the weekend, with temperatures expected to top 36C on Friday and Saturday in Melbourne.

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Greens and legal advocates say bill will make it harder to hold authorities accountable for conditions in detention facilities

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Labor has introduced a bill that would allow drugs and mobile phones to be confiscated from non-citizens in immigration detention, despite opposing a phone ban when attempted by Peter Dutton in 2020.

The Albanese government is proposing greater safeguards than the Coalition’s attempts to ban phones, but the move has already outraged the Greens and legal advocates who warn it will make it harder to hold authorities accountable for conditions in detention.

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European Commission should take office on 1 December after centre-right EPP and Socialists forge compromise

European parliament leaders have reached a deal to approve Ursula von der Leyen’s top team, paving the way for the new European Commission to take office on 1 December.

Leaders of the centre-right European People’s party (EPP), the Socialists and the centrist Renew group – who between them have 56% of the parliament’s 720 seats – forged a compromise on Wednesday intended to ensure that von der Leyen’s nominees would be approved in a vote next week.

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In a television interview in France, foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot has dismissed Vladimir Putin’s approval of a new nuclear doctrine yesterday as rhetoric, and, Reuters reports, said “We are not intimidated.”

The change in nuclear doctrine yesterday lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of nuclear weapons, with a significant development being that Russia says it now considers a nuclear response justified if it is on the receiving end of aggression by a non-nuclear power that is being aided by a nuclear power.

Storm Shadow missile attack comes day after Kyiv used US-supplied long-range weapons to strike within Russia

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Ukraine has fired UK-made Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, multiple sources have told the Guardian.

The decision to approve the strikes was made in response to the deployment of more than 10,000 North Korean troops on Russia’s border with Ukraine, which UK and US officials warned was a significant escalation of the near three-year conflict.

Investigators gather evidence at two Baltic sites while Danish navy is shadowing Chinese cargo ship

Swedish police investigating the believed sabotage of two fibre-optic undersea cables in the Baltic Sea have said a Chinese ship off the coast of Denmark was “of interest” as Danish officials said its navy was shadowing a Chinese-registered cargo ship.

The ship, identified by Denmark as the Yi Peng 3, passed the two cables on Sunday and Monday about the time it is believed they were severed in a suspected malicious attack. The ship has been shadowed by a Danish navy vessel since it was located in waters between Sweden and Denmark.

American applications would be fast-tracked although scheme is open to other nationalities, says mayor of Ollolai

The mayor of a small town in Sardinia has said thousands of Americans keen to escape Donald Trump have expressed an interest in moving there after he offered homes to them for as little as €1.

Francesco Columbu, the mayor of Ollolai, has staged similarly enticing initiatives in the past as a way to combat depopulation. He released more homes for sale after sensing he was on to a winner when Trump clinched a second term as US president in elections earlier this month.

Moscow has rattled its nuclear sabres, but experts say an increase in hybrid, ‘grey zone’ warfare is more likely

Moscow has threatened to retaliate for the decision taken by the US and the UK to allow their long-range missiles to be used in strikes inside Russian territory, and warned that nothing is off the table. Earlier this week, the Kremlin announced a formal change in its nuclear doctrine which specifically envisages a possible nuclear response to Nato-assisted strikes on Russian soil. So, how far is Vladimir Putin prepared to go?