Brüssel (AFP) – NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says the Western alliance has become “more lethal” thanks to the leadership of US President Donald Trump and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, as defence ministers meet in Brussels to discuss the war in Ukraine.
Washington (AFP) – US President Donald Trump awards a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom to right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who was killed in an attack in September as he addressed students on a campus in Utah. Handing the medal to Kirk’s widow, Trump hails Kirk as a “martyr for truth and freedom”. The US State Department said it had revoked visas of at least six foreign nationals who had “celebrated the heinous assassination” on social media.
Gyodong (South Korea) (AFP) – North Koreans who fled to South Korea’s Gyodong Island during the Korean war in the 1950s still pine for relatives in their former home. Unable to visit their loved ones’ graves, they perform funeral rites at a makeshift altar during the autumn harvest festival. N°78JG4NQ
Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Bulldozers clear rubble in Gaza City following the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. “The municipality of Gaza City immediately started working on its top priority for this period, which is to open roads,” says mayor of Gaza City Yahya Al-Sarraj, adding “we urgently need construction materials, especially cement, approximately one thousand tons.”
Harwich (United Kingdom) (AFP) – Crew members and researchers on board the UK polar research ship RRS Sir David Attenborough prepare the vessel for its upcoming trip to Antarctica. The research platform, named after the iconic British naturalist, is “at the cutting edge of polar technology”, says Peter Davis, a physical oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey.
Garoua (Cameroon) (AFP) – Cameroon’s opposition challenger Issa Tchiroma Bakary claims election victory against incumbent President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 43 years, with official results from Sunday’s vote not expected for two weeks. “It is a clear sanction against the current regime and a plebiscite in favour of immediate change,” Bakary says in a statement.
(AFP) – Nicolas Maduro’s time is up but he can still leave power peacefully, Venezuelan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado tells AFP in an interview from hiding. “Maduro currently has the opportunity to move toward a peaceful transition,” the opposition figurehead says.
Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Buses carrying Palestinian prisoners released by Israel are greeted by a jubilant crowd in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. It comes as world leaders gather for a summit in Egypt, where the foreign ministry has said a “document ending the war in the Gaza Strip” is expected to be signed.
Jerusalem (AFP) – President Donald Trump hails an end to a “painful nightmare” and vows the US will “never forget” the October 7 attack on Israel following two years of war in Gaza, during an address to Israel’s parliament. After his address, Trump travelled to Egypt to co-chair a summit on Gaza alongside President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the presence of a host of world leaders. The Egyptian foreign ministry says a “document ending the war in the Gaza Strip” is expected to be signed during the “historic” gathering.
Stockholm (AFP) – The Nobel prize in economics is awarded to American-Israeli Joel Mokyr, France’s Philippe Aghion and Canada’s Peter Howitt for work on technology’s impact on sustained economic growth.
Mbandaka (DR Congo) (AFP) – The cemetery in Mbandaka, a river port city in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is the final resting place of many victims of the country’s repeated river boat accidents. With less than five percent of the vast nation’s roads tarmacked, many locals resort to poorly maintained “river buses” to get to school, market or work in the fields. Day and night, the so-called whaleboats ply the mighty Congo River — the second longest in Africa and the deepest in the world — overloaded with both people and cargo.
Tel Aviv (AFP) – “It’s so exciting and overwhelming that it’s finally happening,” says Shelly Bar Nir from Tel Aviv, as a huge crowd gathers on the coastal city’s Hostages’ Square to support the hostages’ families. Hamas has handed over the 20 surviving Israeli hostages under a ceasefire agreement, as US President Donald Trump and other world leaders gear up for a summit on Gaza.
