Colombian President Gustavo Petro has announced a $4.3bn deal to buy Swedish warplanes at a time when his country is locked in tension with the United States. Speaking on Friday, Petro confirmed an agreement was reached with Sweden's Saab aircraft manufacturer to buy 17 Gripen fighter jets, giving the first confirmation of the size and cost of the military acquisition that was initially announced in April.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party and its main regional ally have scored a landslide victory in elections in the eastern state of Bihar, according to results on Friday from the Election Commission of India. The state election was closely watched because it offers an insight into the level of support for the Indian leader and his party.
In a Facebook post on Friday, Ben Mbarek's sister, Dalila Ben Mbarek Msaddek, warned that her brother's health had now severely deteriorated and doctors detected a highly dangerous toxin affecting his kidneys. Msaddek said Ben Mbarek had received treatment but refused nutritional supplements at the hospital where he was transferred on Thursday night, insisting on continuing his now 17-day protest.
My identity, my immediate family, my extended family, everything was erased,' says adoptee Ju-rye Hwang. Sydney, Australia Ju-rye Hwang grew up assuming her parents in South Korea were dead and that she was alone in the world after being adopted to North America at about six years of age. That was until a phone call from a journalist in Seoul turned her world upside down.
At least two people have been killed and 21 remain unaccounted for following a landslide in Indonesia, according to officials, as rescuers continue to search for the missing. Several days of heavy rainfall in the region led to landslides that hit dozens of houses in three villages in the Cilacap district, Central Java province, on Thursday evening, officials said in a statement released on Friday.
Satisfaction with democracy is below 50% in eight out of nine western countries surveyed in a poll, and majorities in all but one fear for its future, with fake news, lack of political accountability, extremism and corruption seen as the biggest threats. An Ipsos survey of almost 10,000 people in Croatia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US found satisfaction with democracy low in all except Sweden, with deep concerns about the future state of electoral politics.
Known colloquially as the "Chicken's Neck," the Siliguri Corridor is a narrow 22-kilometer strip linking mainland India to its seven northeastern states. Sandwiched between Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and China, it remains one of India's most sensitive geopolitical chokepoints. According to media reports this week, India's military has reinforced its eastern frontier by establishing three fully operational garrisons at strategic points around the Siliguri Corridor near the India-Bangladesh border.
"At the end of the day, we have to choose our hard," Kwekweza told DW. "If you're abducted for speaking truth to power, if you're in prison for speaking truth to power, it's hard, but if you're waking up and you're living a life, a shell of a life that is limited in opportunity and possibility, that is also hard."
Ivory Coast has reinforced its border security after the arrival of several unusual flows of refugees from neighbouring Mali, officials in the West African country have said. Ivory Coast's National Security Council (NSC) said in a statement on Thursday that the influx appears to be due to attacks against civilians by armed terrorist groups in several areas of southern Mali.
The militant Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, is designated a terrorist organization by the US and the UN. The group is separate from but allied with the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan often accuses Afghanistan of harboring TTP militants and their fighters for carrying out frequent attacks on Pakistani soil. Kabul denies the claim. TTP fighters have emerged as among the biggest security challenges for Islamabad, experts say, as the group appears emboldened with the Taliban having regained power in Afghanistan in 2021.
By the numbers: 29% of Americans said they supported the military killings without the involvement of a judge or court. A majority (51%) said they were opposed. The rest were unsure. Approval was split among party lines: 58% of Republicans and 8% of Democrats said they supported the approach. The big picture: The Trump administration has killed at least 80 people in 20 drone strikes since early September. The president is reportedly considering expanding the strikes to land targets, the Washington Post reports.
Sadiq was able to convince the RSF fighters who are fighting the regular army known as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) to allow his family and his brother's family to flee town. They were among nearly 39,000 people uprooted from the vast Kordofan region due to a sharp uptick in violence between October 26 and November 9, according to the United Nations.
Analysts in Israel say Israel is continuing on the same path, despite the ceasefire in Gaza. The US-imposed ceasefire of October 10 has not stopped Israel's regular attacks on the Gaza Strip. Nor has it threatened to hold a parliament and society that largely cheered on the war, which has been deemed genocidal by multiple international bodies, accountable for their actions.
With all of these deals, the ones in Asia, the ones we're announcing today, we maintain the tariffs, we give some tariff relief on certain products or goods, but at the same time, we open up foreign markets in ways that they have not been open before,
It is an intelligence relationship that predates even the Five Eyes: the UKUSA alliance that began, naturally enough, in secret in 1946. But this week the strain of trying to be the closest security ally to a freewheeling White House has begun to show. Britain, it emerged, had quietly suspended intelligence cooperation with the US in the Caribbean because London does not consider the deadly US military campaign against ships accused of drug trafficking to be in line with international law.
We will have the collaboration of several international agencies, including, of course, the DEA. Because drug trafficking and terrorism are not the problem of a single nation, Oviedo said Wednesday at an official event. Oviedo focused primarily on the coca-producing region known as the tropics of Cochabamba, or Chapare, a political stronghold of Morales and an area with minimal regulation over coca leaf production. Local coca growers have warned that they will not allow the international agency to set up operations there.
These are trying times for corporations. The marketplace is rife with unpredictability, especially when it comes to economic and trade policy. The 2025 World Economic Forum's Chief Economists Outlook report concluded that "uncertainty has become a defining feature of the global economic landscape," with 82% of chief economists gauging uncertainty as "very high." This year, the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index, which tracks data from around the world, spiked to its highest level in three decades.
Asian markets closed out the week on a negative footing, as the tech-sector rout from Wall Street spilled across the globe. Meanwhile, a raft of concerning data points out of China saw weak retail sales, industrial production, and home price figures. This had a particular impact on tech-focused consumer firms such as Alibaba and JD.com. The weakness in both consumer and business indicators signalled a need to be cautious in the region.
Japan's prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has said she gets by on just two to four hours sleep a night prompting concern over her commitment to a better work-life balance among the country's fatigued employees. Pointing to the bags beneath her eyes, Takaichi told MPs that she survives on minimal sleep a habit she shares with her political hero Margaret Thatcher after being asked how she would tackle Japan's notoriously long working hours.
As of 5:30pm (1200 GMT) on Friday, the NDA had won two seats and was leading in 204 out of 243, while the opposition Mahagathabandhan, or the Grand Alliance, with the Indian National Congress and the regional Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) as the main parties, was leading in just 33 seats, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI). The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which is currently not part of either alliance, was leading in one seat.
The United States and South Korea have released details of a trade agreement that includes a $150bn Korean investment in the US shipbuilding sector, and both countries agree to move forward on building nuclear-powered submarines. Under the agreement, President Lee Jae Myung said on Friday that South Korea will build nuclear-powered submarines as part of a new partnership with Washington on shipbuilding, artificial intelligence and the nuclear industry.
Immediately, I collected my bag and umbrella and called my husband. I didn't know what was happening. My colleague advised me not to sit in the ladies' coach on the train (in Mumbai we have a separate coach for ladies). He said, You'd better go in the general coach, because if something happens you will have the support of other people there.
