Bondi beach mass shooting

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has released 123 prisoners, including Nobel peace prize laureate Ales Bialiatski and opposition leader Maria Kalesnikava, following the United States’ decision to lift sanctions on Belarusian potash exports. The announcement came after two days of talks in Minsk with Donald Trump’s envoy, John Coale. It marks the largest prisoner release since diplomatic contacts between Washington and Lukashenko began. Belarus, a close ally of Russia, has long…

Two soldiers and an American civilian interpreter have been killed in an ambush by Islamic State militants in central Syria, the Pentagon confirmed. Several others were wounded in the attack near Palmyra, the first incident to cause US casualties since the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad a year ago. President Donald Trump described the victims as “three great patriots” and said the wounded were “doing pretty well”. He vowed…

Chileans will vote on Sunday in a presidential runoff that pits ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast against former labour minister Jeannette Jara. The contest has been dominated by debate over migration and security, with Kast widely tipped as the favourite. Kast, 59, a former congressman, has pledged to expel tens of thousands of undocumented migrants and build fortified barriers along Chile’s borders. He is the son of a Nazi party member,…

Switzerland is heading towards a high-stakes referendum that could dramatically reshape its migration policy and its relationship with the European Union, as voters prepare to decide whether to freeze immigration once the country’s population reaches 10 million. The proposal, championed by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), would legally oblige the government to halt net immigration when the threshold is reached — something demographic projections suggest could happen in the…

 Donald Trump’s reported threat to cut off US aid to Nigeria and order the Pentagon to prepare for “possible action” over the persecution of Christians has drawn renewed international attention to Nigeria’s worsening security crisis. Analysts and civil society figures, however, say the rhetoric is unlikely to result in meaningful protection for vulnerable communities or produce lasting change on the ground. In Nigeria, reactions have been mixed. The Nigerian Supreme…

The European Union has agreed to indefinitely freeze Russia’s sovereign assets held in the bloc, as Moscow escalates threats to retaliate against Euroclear, the Brussels-based securities depository responsible for safeguarding most of the immobilised funds. The move, which uses emergency powers to immobilise €210bn (£185bn) of Russia’s central bank reserves, marks a significant step towards channelling the money to support Ukraine’s defence. European Council president António Costa confirmed on Friday…

North Korea has admitted for the first time that its soldiers were sent to Russia’s Kursk region earlier this year to clear mines, a rare acknowledgement of the dangerous tasks assigned to its forces abroad. Leader Kim Jong-un made the disclosure in a speech carried by state media on Saturday, hailing the return of an engineering regiment that had been deployed for 120 days from August. According to South Korean…

Reddit has lodged a challenge in the High Court against Australia’s ban on social media use by under-16s, filing its case two days after introducing age restrictions on its platform. In a statement posted on Friday, the company said it supported efforts to protect young people but argued the legislation imposed “intrusive and potentially insecure verification processes on adults as well as minors, isolating teens from the ability to engage…

Iranian security forces have arrested 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi at a memorial ceremony for a lawyer and human rights advocate, her supporters said. Mohammadi, who had been granted temporary medical leave from prison in December 2024, was detained alongside several activists at the ceremony for Khosro Alikordi, who was found dead in his office last week, the Narges Foundation said on X. Her husband, Taghi Rahmani, who…

South Korean entrepreneur, Do Kwon, behind the collapse of two cryptocurrencies that wiped out $40bn (£29.8bn) in value, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for fraud. The 34-year-old pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and wire fraud charges in the United States. He co-founded Singapore-based Terraform Labs and developed the TerraUSD and Luna tokens, whose implosion in 2022 triggered a wider crash in the sector. At a hearing…

Donald Trump has signed an executive order seeking to prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence, creating a federal taskforce with the sole responsibility of challenging state laws. At a ceremony on Thursday, the president said AI companies were eager to invest in the United States but warned that “if they had to get 50 different approvals from 50 different states, you could forget it”. The order, titled Ensuring a national…