Global News

By Louis GENOT AFP In a Rio de Janeiro favela, a little boy wore a T-shirt stained with red paint mimicking the blood spilled this week in Brazil’s deadliest-ever police operation. He held up a sign reading: “Children should be able to play, the favela wants to live in peace.” The boy was one of hundreds of people who marched Friday through the streets of Vila Cruzeiro, one of the Rio favelas where the raids claimed over 120 lives in an hours-long crackdown just three days earlier. Favelas are low-income and crowded neighborhoods that are often built on steep hillsides in Brazil. “Tuesday was the day of horror. What we saw here was a massacre,” said Ana Maria Pereira, 18, a resident of the neighborhood that is home mainly to Black and mixed-race people, and whose narrow alleys are overhung by tangles of electric wires. Friday’s demonstration set out from the football field in Rio where Adriano, former star of Inter Milan and Brazil’s national team, had kicked his first balls as a...

Police in Tanzania’s main city of Dar es Salaam fired gunshots and teargas on Thursday to disperse protesters who returned to the streets a day after a  general election  marred by violent demonstrations, a Reuters witness said. Protests broke out in Dar es Salaam and several other cities during the vote on Wednesday, with demonstrators infuriated by the  exclusion  of President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s two biggest challengers from the presidential race, as well as what they say is increasing repression of government critics. Police ordered an overnight curfew in Dar es Salaam, a city of more than seven million people, and internet access remained disrupted across the country. Dozens of protesters returned to the streets of the Mbagala, Gongo la Mboto and Kiluvya neighbourhoods on Thursday, where police fired gunshots and teargas, the Reuters witness said. PROTESTERS DISCUSS PLANS FOR NEW MARCHES The U.S. embassy said that some major roads, including the main one l...

 Hurricane Melissa made landfall in eastern Cuba near the city of Chivirico early Wednesday as a Category 3 storm  after pummeling Jamaica  as one of the  strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record , the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Hundreds of thousands of people had been evacuated to shelters in Cuba. A hurricane warning was in effect for the Cuban provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo, Holguin and Las Tunas, as well as the southeastern and central Bahamas. Early Wednesday, Melissa had top sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) and was moving northeast at 12 mph (19 kph) according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The hurricane was centered 60 miles (97 kilometers) west of Guantánamo, Cuba, and 230 miles (370 kilometers) south of the central Bahamas. The agency warned residents of Cuba to remain sheltered and that preparations for the storm in the Bahamas “should be rushed to completion.” Melissa was forecast to weaken as it crosses Cuba...

BY SUZAN FRASER and MUNIR AHMED AP Peace talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan have failed in Istanbul after  four days of negotiations , Pakistan’s information minister said early Wednesday, accusing the Taliban government in Kabul of refusing to act against militants blamed for deadly cross-border attacks. The talks followed an earlier round in Doha that produced a ceasefire on Oct. 19 after deadly border clashes between the two sides left dozens dead, including soldiers, civilians and militants. However, the ceasefire was still holding and no new clashes were reported between Pakistan and Afghanistan hours after the talks collapsed. Pakistan accuses the Taliban of harboring militants linked to a surge in attacks, while Kabul denies its territory is being used against Pakistan. Before dawn Wednesday, Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar took to social media platform X, saying the dialogue “failed to bring about any workable solution,” despite mediation by Qatar a...

By Khalid Abdelaziz and Nafisa Eltahir Reuters A Sudanese paramilitary force is battling the last pockets of resistance in a Darfur city that has endured a  brutal 18-month siege  and where a full takeover would entrench a geographical division of the country between rival military factions. The advance by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has also raised fears of reprisals against the estimated 250,000 people remaining in al-Fashir, the final holdout of the Sudanese army in the western Darfur region, and of an escalation of fighting elsewhere in Sudan. Since Sunday, when the RSF said it  had captured  the army’s headquarters in al-Fashir, RSF fighters have been detaining fleeing civilians in nearby towns and villages, witnesses as well as humanitarian and military sources said. Some 26,000 people had been displaced by the fighting, the International Organization for Migration said. Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan confirmed in a broadcast speech his forces had dec...

By Shwan Mohammed with Hazel Ward in Istanbul AFP The Kurdish militant PKK began withdrawing all of its forces from Turkish soil to northern Iraq on Sunday, while urging Ankara to release its jailed leader to ensure the success of the peace process. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) formally renounced its armed struggle against Turkey in May, drawing a line under four decades of violence that had claimed some 50,000 lives. “We are implementing the withdrawal of all our forces within Turkey,” the PKK said in a statement read out in Kurdish and Turkish in a remote village in the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq, according to an AFP journalist present. Standing in front of large banners of jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan were 25 fighters carrying assault rifles — among them three commanders — whom the PKK said had just left Turkey. Eight were women. It was not immediately clear how many fighters would be involved in the withdrawal but observers estimated it would likely be betwe...

By Jan HENNOP AFP US President Donald Trump co-signed a truce between Thailand and Cambodia during the first stop on his Asia tour on Sunday, touting new trade deals with the countries after they agreed to prolong a ceasefire along their border. Five days of clashes erupted along Thailand and Cambodia’s jungle-clad frontier this summer, as a territorial dispute triggered open combat, killing more than 40 people and forcing 300,000 to flee their homes. Thailand and Cambodia agreed an initial truce in late July after intervention by Trump, as well as Chinese diplomats and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc. A new joint declaration was signed by Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, as well as Trump and Anwar, after the US leader landed in the Malaysian capital. “This is a momentous day for all of the people of Southeast Asia, as we sign a historic agreement to end the mi...

The presidents of Cameroon and Ivory Coast, 92 and 83 respectively, are each seeking to extend decades of rule, reflecting a trend across Africa where some of the world’s oldest leaders govern its youngest populations, often leading to demands for change and accountability from “Gen Z” youth. Below are facts and figures about some of the continent’s oldest heads of state. The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up  here. The chart shows the median age of some African countries’ population and the age of their leaders. Paul Biya – Cameroon (aged 92) Biya has ruled since 1982, making him the world’s oldest serving head of state who is not a monarch. His tenure has been marked by centralised governance and constitutional changes to extend his stay. Biya could be declared the winner of the October 12 presidential election, though opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma has declared victory, warning of potential chaos in the na...

ByQASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA Associated Press BAGHDAD — BAGHDAD (AP) —  Iraq  is weeks away from parliamentary elections that will set the country’s course during one of the Middle East’s most delicate moments in years. While the ceasefire in  Gaza  may have tamped down regional tensions, fears remain of another round of conflict between Israel and Iraq’s neighbor, Iran. Iraq managed to stay on the sidelines during the brief  Israel-Iran  war in June. Meanwhile, Baghdad faces increasing pressure from Washington over the presence of Iran-linked armed groups in Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister  Mohammed Shia al-Sudani  came to power in 2022 with the backing of a group of pro-Iran parties but has since sought to balance Iraq’s relations with Tehran and Washington. The Nov. 11 vote will determine whether he gets a second term — rare for Iraqi premiers in the past. A total of 7,768 candidates — 2,248 women and 5,520 men — are competing for 329 parliament ...

By Eltayeb Siddig Reuters  In the heart of Khartoum state’s largest industrial zone, an engineer bends over a broken machine with a pair of pliers and a bunch of wires, trying to breathe life back into a production line wrecked by more than  two years of war . People who fled when the conflict erupted in 2023  started to return  this year after Sudan’s army retook the capital from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. While fighting rages on in other areas, some businesses have begun picking up the pieces. “This factory made electrical products with all the components,” manager Asim Alamin said as he watched the repair work in the CTC Group plant in Bahri, part of the greater capital. “Now we are rehabilitating it. Hopefully we will return to what it was before.” MAJOR LOSSES On top of the repairs, businesses are facing a huge clear-up operation. Across the capital, factories and warehouses are littered with twisted metal and rubble, lit by shafts of light fr...

By Lucy Craymer Reuters More than 100,000 New Zealand teachers, nurses, doctors, firefighters and support staff walked off the job on Thursday demanding more money and resources for the public sector in a sign of growing discontent with the country’s centre-right government. Public servants marched with placards and banners in towns across New Zealand, chanting and listening to speeches. Protests in Wellington and Christchurch had to be cancelled because of  dangerous weather conditions . The unions in a joint statement last week billed the strike as the largest in decades with more than 100,000 public servants taking part. Middlemore Hospital emergency doctor and Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Vice President Sylvia Boys told the crowd at Aotea Square in Auckland the government had been elected on promises to reduce the cost of living while maintaining frontline services and it was “fair to say these are the issues on which they are failing dismally.” “The cost of...

By Tarek Amara Reuters A general strike and tens of thousands of protesters brought the southern Tunisian city of Gabes to a standstill on Tuesday to back demands for the closure of a state chemical plant blamed for a  pollution crisis . A recent spate of environmental and anti-government protests prompted by a worsening economic crisis and disruptions in public services has posed the biggest challenge to President Kais Saied since he seized all power in 2021. Shops, markets, schools, and cafes shut down in the general strike, paralysing economic activity in coastal Gabes in response to a call by the powerful UGTT labour union. Crowds held up banners condemning the environmental pollution caused by the CGT phosphate plant over the years that critics say now threatens the health of thousands of residents. Protesters marched through the city chanting slogans such as “Gabes wants to live” and “dismantle the polluting units.” Saied, seeking to defuse the discontent, said earlier ...

A Russian bombardment of energy infrastructure cut power to hundreds of thousands of people in northern Ukraine’s Chernihiv region on Tuesday, with repairs unable to start due to the lingering threat of drone strikes, Ukraine’s energy ministry said. It said that the regional capital, which had a pre-war population of about 280,000, and the northern part of the region had totally lost power. Chernihiv has been hammered by Russian drone and missile attacks on its power infrastructure in recent weeks, causing regular blackouts and disrupting daily life. “Emergency crews in Chernihiv region are unable to begin work on restoring power supply due to continuous attacks by Russian drones,” the ministry said in a statement on Telegram. It accused Russia of launching drones to circle above damaged facilities to make it impossible to carry out repairs and “deliberately prolong the humanitarian crisis”. Chernihiv’s acting mayor Oleksandr Lomako said Moscow was seeking to deprive local residen...

By Loucoumane Coulibaly Reuters In a town in Ivory Coast torn apart by election violence and mass killings more than a decade ago, peace activists say they have hit on a way to help avoid a repeat of the bloodshed – “reconciliation marriages” between rival groups. Dozens of men and women from different communities have tied the knot in recent years. Many had joined youth groups and other activities organised by local nonprofit Limpia, which offered support and counselling to any couples that got together. As the West African nation prepares for  another election  on Saturday, Limpia is pressing on with its work and planning for another run of 10 weddings in Duekoue in a mass civil ceremony early next year. “These marriages will create many grandsons and great-grandsons … who will be forced to share everything in terms of heritage and language,” Limpia director Alexis Kango said as he scrolled through photos on his phone of couples he has worked with. ‘MIXED MARRIAGES BRIN...

BY MARI YAMAGUCHI AFP Sanae Takaichi, a star of ultraconservative Japanese politics and a rare woman to rise in its male-dominated hierarchy, has been elected the country’s first female prime minister. Takaichi, 64, is also the first woman to lead the Liberal Democratic Party that has dominated Japan’s postwar politics almost without interruption. She admires former British Prime Minister  Margaret Thatcher  and is a proponent of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s conservative vision for Japan. A China hawk, she is a regular at  Yasukuni Shrine,  seen by China, the two Koreas and other Asian victims of Japan’s World War II aggression as a place that glorifies the country’s wartime past. The leader of a country that ranks poorly internationally for gender equality, Takaichi had rarely mentioned the issue during the campaign. She did remark after winning the presidency of the ruling party: ”Now that the LDP has its first female president, its scenery will...

Amazon’s cloud services unit AWS was hit by an outage on Monday, causing connectivity issues for many companies around the world and disrupting services for several popular websites and apps including Fortnite and Snapchat. “We can confirm increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region,” AWS said in an update on its status page. AI startup Perplexity, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and trading app Robinhood attributed the outages to AWS. “Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it,” Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said in a post on X. AWS provides on-demand computing power, data storage and other digital services to companies, governments and individuals. Disruptions to its servers can cause outages across websites and platforms that rely on its cloud infrastructure. AWS competes with Google’s and Microsoft’s cloud services. AWS and Amazon did not respond to a request for comment. Amazon’s s...

By Sandra FERRER AFP Bolivians on Sunday elected a pro-business center-right senator as their new president, ending two decades of socialist rule that left the South American nation deep in economic crisis. With 97.8 percent of ballots counted, Rodrigo Paz had 54.6 percent of the vote to 45.4 percent for his rival, right-wing former interim president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) said. The news was greeted with joy, music and fireworks on the streets of La Paz. “We came to celebrate the victory with great hope of a new direction for Bolivia,” reveler Julio Andrey, a 40-year-old lawyer, told AFP. Paz, the 58-year-old son of a former president, has vowed a “capitalism for all” approach to economic reform, with decentralization, lower taxes and fiscal discipline mixed with continued social spending. In his victory address, Paz said Bolivia was “reclaiming its place on the international stage.” Washington congratulated Paz on his election win, with Secre...

By Shrouq TARIQ with Aysha SAFI in Kabul AFP Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to an “immediate ceasefire” at talks in Doha, after at least 10 Afghans were killed in Pakistani air strikes that broke an earlier truce. For more than a week, the South Asian neighbours have engaged in bloody border clashes — their worst conflict since the return of the Taliban government in 2021. A 48-hour truce briefly put a stop to the fighting, which has killed dozens of troops and civilians, until Friday’s air strikes. After peace talks in Doha, Qatar’s foreign ministry said early Sunday that “the two sides agreed to an immediate ceasefire and the establishment of mechanisms to consolidate lasting peace and stability between the two countries”. They also agreed to follow-up meetings in the coming days to ensure the ceasefire, the foreign ministry added. Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif confirmed that a ceasefire agreement had been reached and said the two sides would meet again in Istanbul ...

Mongolian lawmakers voted to remove the prime minister and parliament speaker on Friday, throwing the resource-rich nation into renewed political turmoil. Zandanshatar Gombojav stepped down as prime minister after losing the confidence vote just four months after taking office, the official Montsame news agency reported. One reason cited by lawmakers was that Zandanshatar, a former foreign minister and parliamentary speaker, had recently tried to circumvent parliament and appoint a new minister of justice and home affairs without consulting them. The 55-year-old had been confirmed as the country’s 32nd prime minister in June after his predecessor, L. Oyun-Erdene, quit, also after losing parliamentary backing, due to corruption allegations and street protests. Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, Mongolia’s president since 2021, is expected to nominate the next prime minister, who would require the approval of the State Great Khural, or parliament. Mongolian politics has been rocked by waves of vola...

By Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Alexander Cornwell Reuters Israel said on Thursday it was preparing for the reopening of Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt to let Palestinians in and out, but set no date as it traded blame with Hamas over violations of a U.S.-mediated ceasefire. A dispute over the return of hostages’ bodies held by Hamas threatens to derail the truce and other unresolved elements of the plan, including disarmament of militants and Gaza’s future governance. Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told reporters Israel remained committed to the agreement and continued to uphold its obligations, demanding Hamas return the bodies of the 19 deceased hostages it had not handed over. The Islamist faction has handed over 10 bodies but Israel said one was not that of a hostage. Hamas said it remained committed to the Gaza agreement and to handing over all the remaining bodies of hostages, but that returning the remains may take time as some were buried in tunnels destroyed ...

By Lovasoa Rabary Reuters Madagascar’s coup leader Colonel  Michael Randrianirina  was sworn in as president on Friday, after the military took power in the island nation this week following youth-led protests that forced  Andry Rajoelina  to flee. Rajoelina, whom lawmakers impeached after he fled abroad at the weekend, has condemned the takeover and refused to step down despite widespread defections in the security forces. The African Union and the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have condemned the coup, which came after weeks of “Gen Z” protests. “I will fully, completely, and justly fulfil the high responsibilities of my position as President of the Republic of Madagascar,” Randrianirina said in a ceremony at the High Constitutional Court. “I swear that I will exercise the power entrusted to me and dedicate all my strength to defending and strengthening national unity and human rights,” he added. Randrianirina said earlier that the military...

By Alice Chancellor with Sophie Pons in Cairo AFP Israel’s defence minister threatened Wednesday to resume fighting if Hamas does not honour the terms of a US-backed ceasefire that halted the war in Gaza. The statement from Defence Minister Israel Katz’s office came after Hamas handed over the remains of two more deceased hostages, and said it would be unable to retrieve any more bodies from the ruins of Gaza without specialised equipment. Since Monday, under a ceasefire agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump, the Palestinian Islamist group has handed back 20 surviving hostages to Israel in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails. Before the two bodies were handed over late on Wednesday, Hamas had already returned the remains of seven of 28 known deceased hostages — along with an eighth body which Israel said was not that of a former hostage. “If Hamas refuses to comply with the agreement, Israel, in coordination with the United States, wi...

By Luis Jaime Acosta Reuters The National Coordinator of the Bolivarian Army (CNEB), one of five dissident groups of Colombia’s former FARC guerrilla movement, handed over its first batch of armaments as a sign of goodwill in talks with the Colombian government, both sides said on Wednesday. The delivery of explosives, grenades, mortars and other munitions, part of a total 14 tons CNEB has committed to hand over, marks the most significant advance by leftist President Gustavo Petro in efforts to end a six-decade conflict that has killed more than 450,000 people. The CNEB includes about 2,000 combatants and collaborators. Petro met with leaders of the rebel group at a ceremony in the southern town of Puerto Asis. The war materiel was destroyed in a controlled detonation by the National Army in a rural area of the jungle department of Putumayo, near Puerto Asis. Two more deliveries are expected in the coming days in the department of Nariño. The CNEB emerged from the Second Marquet...

by: EMMANUEL TUMANJONG, NGALA KILLIAN CHIMTOM and MARK BANCHEREAU, Associated Press Cameroon opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma Bakary claimed victory in the Oct. 12 presidential election ahead of the release of official results, urging President Paul Biya, the world’s oldest president, to concede. “Our victory is clear, it must be respected,” Tchiroma said in a video statement on Facebook, calling on Biya to “accept the truth of the ballot box” or “plunge the country into turmoil.” He said he will share a detailed report of the votes by region in the coming days. Elections Cameroon, the independent body in charge of overseeing the poll, and the constitutional court have not yet announced any results. Official results are expected at the latest by Oct. 26. Analysts have predicted a victory for Biya, 92, as the opposition remained divided and his strongest rival was barred from running in August. Eleven opposition candidates were on the ballot for the Oct. 12 election. Minister...

By  SARAH TETAUD and GERALD IMRAY ,Associated Press Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina said he has fled the country in fear for his life following a military rebellion but did not announce his resignation in a speech broadcast on social media late Monday from an undisclosed location. Rajoelina has faced weeks of Gen Z-led anti-government protests, which reached a pivotal point on Saturday when an elite military unit joined the protests and called for the president and other government ministers to step down. That prompted Rajoelina to say that an illegal attempt to seize power was underway in the Indian Ocean island and leave the country. “I was forced to find a safe place to protect my life,” Rajoelina said in his late-night speech, which was also meant to be shown on Madagascar television but was delayed for hours after soldiers attempted to take control of the state broadcaster buildings, according to the president’s office. The speech was ultimately broadcast on the presi...

BY WAFAA SHURAFA, SAMY MAGDY and MELANIE LIDMAN AP AND AGENCIES Hamas on Monday released all 20 living Israeli hostages as part of a hostage-prisoner swap under the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire deal brokered by President Donald Trump. The US leader arrived in Israel on Monday to address parliament, before a scheduled visit to Egypt for a world leaders’ summit on ending the Gaza war. Families and friends of the hostages who gathered in a square in Tel Aviv broke into wild cheers as Israeli television channels announced that the hostages were in the hands of the Red Cross. Tens of thousands of Israelis watched the transfers at public screenings across the country. Later, Israel released the first photos of hostages arriving home. Among them was a photo of Gali and Ziv Berman with expressions of disbelief as they reunited with each other. Hostages previously released said the 28-year-old twins from Kfar Aza were held separately. In the initial photos, those released appeared l...