The Philippine government put a bounty on Friday on the head of the top enforcer of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody anti-drug crackdown, nearly a year after the International Criminal Court (ICC) ordered his arrest. Former Philippine police chief and sitting Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa had mostly been in hiding for months before The Hague-based tribunal unsealed the November 2025 arrest warrant against him in May and put him into flight. The bounty comes just over a month before...

Ukrainian police said on Friday they had detained a 17-year-old girl suspected of helping Russia’s security services to poison Ukrainian soldiers and that two had died. Ukraine and Russia have throughout their war since 2022 accused each other of recruiting minors for sabotage acts including poisoning. The girl, who was not named, is suspected of having packaged deadly drugs and sending them to Ukrainian soldiers she contacted by Telegram, a police statement said. She was arrested by police in...

Palestinian militants wounded five Israelis in an attack on Friday before being killed in a prolonged shoot-out with soldiers, leading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order a lockdown in the occupied West Bank days before Israeli elections. Netanyahu, facing a tight race for a new term in Tuesday’s election, said that Israeli troops prevented what could have been a major attack, with the two assailants allegedly carrying a large quantity of ammunition in their vehicle. An Agence...

The World Health Organization has warned that Africa faced a “complex” Ebola outbreak after the virus crossed from east Africa to Nigeria, marking the first case in the west of the continent. Nigeria on Tuesday had announced an imported case of the Bundibugyo strain, currently causing a major Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was detected in the wife of a diplomat who had travelled from Uganda to the Nigerian capital Abuja. Health minister Muhammad Ali Pate said Thursday the...

Australia said on Friday it had sanctioned two North Korean individuals and companies over the use of “fraudulent” IT workers and cybercrime to earn cash for the isolated nuclear-armed state. The two men are alleged to be key operators in Pyongyang’s cybercriminal activities overseas, estimated by analysts to bring in billions for the country’s weapons programme. “The North Korean entities and individuals sanctioned today facilitate North Korea’s use of fraudulent IT workers to raise revenue for...

The son of Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi said she sounded “fairly healthy” after speaking to the detained ex-democratic leader on Thursday for the first time in more than five years. Suu Kyi, 81, is under house arrest in the capital, Naypyidaw, according to Myanmar authorities, where she has been sequestered since being unseated in a 2021 military coup. “She was sounding fairly healthy,” Kim Aris, who lives in the UK, said after the telephone conversation. It was the first time he had spoken to his...

The United Nations’ climate loss and damage fund moved to provide US$20 million in aid sought by flood-stricken Nepal – the first time it has set aside money for any country – in a key test of the body’s credibility. In an extraordinary meeting on Thursday, the fund’s board agreed to earmark the modest sum for the Himalayan country, which was hit in August by tsunami-like floods triggered by a climate-induced ice and rock avalanche that killed more than 1,400 people and left over 5,000...

With one eye on her baby in a stroller, Minae Kamata operates an arcade machine in a Tokyo suburb, manipulating a claw to grab not a stuffed toy but a pack of toilet paper. As inflation weighs on Japanese households, huge arcades on the outskirts of major cities are installing claw machines filled with eggs, rice, laundry detergent and other necessities. The “shop-and-play destinations” merge essential buying with entertainment so that families do not feel a choice between bringing home the...

At least 16 people were killed and 32 more injured when a strong 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck China’s western Tibet autonomous region late on Thursday, state news agency Xinhua said, citing local authorities. More than 300 houses collapsed in the earthquake, which struck on Thursday at 10.33pm. Officials were still evaluating the damage, and disaster relief work was ongoing, Xinhua said. The epicentre of the quake was located in a mountainous area about 190km (120 miles) east-northeast of...

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg will get a new chunk of shares in the company he founded, and in return, he has agreed to stay in California, where the company is headquartered, for at least eight more years. It is partly a financial carrot intended to keep Zuckerberg in California, where voters in November will decide whether to approve a temporary tax on wealth held by billionaires who live in the state. Meta announced the deal on Wednesday in a securities filing that coincided with its...

Alexandra Eala crashed out in the Ningbo Open last 16 on Thursday as world No 1 Elena Rybakina reached the quarter-finals on her return from injury when opponent Polina Kudermetova retired. Top seed and defending champion Rybakina was cruising 5-0 in eastern China when the world No 105 from Uzbekistan called it quits because of injury. Earlier, Philippine history-maker Eala suffered a battling straight-sets defeat to Diana Shnaider, the Russian world No 13 winning 7-5, 6-4 to book a...

A mob of about 50 people beat a foreign national to death on Thursday in South Africa’s port city of Durban, a flashpoint for anti-migrant sentiment, police said. Durban has been a focus of months of protests against foreign nationals, with looting and violence erupting after an anti-migrant march in the city two weeks ago. Thursday’s attack in the city centre was on the sidelines of a march, police said, without being able to say what the demonstration was about. Two men from the group...

Facing US sanctions, the International Criminal Court was on Thursday awarded the European Union’s top rights prize, in a show of support that risks upsetting President Donald Trump. “The European Union is built on respect for multilateralism and international institutions, and this prize recognises the important work of the court in upholding international law and justice,” said European Parliament chief Roberta Metsola in announcing the award. The ICC thanked the European Parliament for giving...

Officials at the Asian Para Games in Nagoya played the wrong national anthems three times this week, prompting the mayor to apologise just weeks after the city hosted the mishap-plagued Asian Games. The Asian Para Games are taking place in the central Japanese hub city through Saturday, featuring around 4,000 athletes and officials in 18 sports. Nagoya mayor Ichiro Hirosawa apologised on Wednesday for the latest error, which occurred despite officials’ pledges to implement steps to prevent...

Australia and East Timor signed a defence deal on Thursday to boost cyber and maritime security as Canberra seeks to curb China’s influence among its island neighbours. Australia is East Timor’s largest defence and security partner and the agreement will significantly increase defence exercises, Defence Minister Richard Marles told reporters. “This is a time to double down on friendship, to double down on family,” he said in East Timor’s capital Dili. Australia will provide A$62 million (US$44...

Moscow firing ballistic missiles at Ukraine shortly after talks between US envoy Steve Witkoff and Russia’s Vladimir Putin showed the Kremlin’s position on the war had not changed, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday. The Kremlin had said it was willing to restart trilateral talks with Kyiv and Washington next month, though dismissed new ideas brought by Witkoff – developed with European countries and Ukraine – as lacking substance. Russia hit a dozen Ukrainian regions overnight,...

The publisher of top-selling Haitian-Canadian writer Thelyson Orelien said Wednesday it had confirmed that he used artificial intelligence to help write his novel It Was Either That or Die. Orelien has denied allegations that he used AI on his breakthrough novel and, last week, Canadian publisher Boreal said it was standing by the 38-year-old writer. But on Wednesday, Boreal said it had conducted a further investigation into the allegations. “New information, confirmed over the past few days,...

Indonesia’s president railed against “countries that like to insult” his nation over wildfires that have razed vast areas, spewing toxic haze into neighbouring countries. The Southeast Asian giant has for months struggled to contain fires that Nusantara Atlas, an independent monitor analysing satellite data, said had consumed more than 1.9 million hectares (4.7 million acres) in the nine months to September. The haze has sent air pollution levels surging to dangerous levels not only at home, but...

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for Ohio governor, faced a firestorm of criticism Wednesday over an ad featuring Democratic rival Amy Acton’s estranged mother, whose husband was charged with raping Acton when she was a child. Acton has not spoken with her mother, Donna Arthur, since her childhood, when she accused her then-stepfather of sexually abusing her for years. In the ad, Arthur says her daughter has “lied her entire life”. “Don’t let her become your governor. If you think...

Government agencies and companies around the world shut down websites Wednesday after two critical flaws came to light involving PHP, a programming language that is the basis for a large share of the internet. PHP sits underneath popular web design platforms, so the weaknesses potentially affect a vast range of websites, from online stores and news outlets to government services. Wiz, one of the security firms that found the flaws, estimated that PHP runs about 70 per cent of the world’s...