Colombian President Gustavo Petro has denounced the US strikes on alleged cartel vessels in the Caribbean Sea as the Pentagon announced a new operation to fight drug traffickers.

In an interview with NBC News, Petro did not mince words when criticizing US President Donald Trump. “He’s a barbarian,” Petro said in excerpts aired Thursday. “He wants to frighten us,” he added.

The Colombian president did not rule out that some of the vessels hit by the strikes were linked to cartels. “Maybe or maybe not. We do not know,” he said, adding that, “According to due process, the civilized treatment of people, they should be seized and detained.”

"I know that you know, but you’ll never be able to prove it,” Graham Richardson once said to me more than 20 years ago, back when we were still talking.

For a reporter whose career has been spent uncovering crime and corruption, Richo was the one who got away.

Long lunches, Swiss bank accounts and a kangaroo scrotum: My decades pursuing Graham Richardson

By Kate McClymont

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says the Liberals have the "memory of goldfish and diet of piranhas" after dumping net zero by 2050.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley was also up on ABC News Breakfast this morning where she's been asked if dumping net zero could damage Australia's global reputation.

The opposition leader has brushed aside that question and says the Liberal Party is proposing to remain in the Paris Agreement.

Ley says Labor's climate targets are unachievable because Australia is cutting emissions twice as fast as the developed world.

Ukraine corruption scandal puts top figures under scrutiny

The corruption scandal is fast becoming Ukraine's most significant government crisis since Russia's invasion in 2022.

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Germany news: Police search AfD politician's property

Prosecutors in Thuringia said police searched three properties but were not seeking an arrest. DW has more.

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US to designate Germany's 'Antifa Ost' a terrorist group

On her first day of work, Adau realised she had made a big mistake.

"We got our uniforms, not even knowing exactly what we were going to do. From the first day of work we were taken to the drones factory. We stepped in and we saw drones everywhere and people working. Then they took us to our different work stations."

Twenty-three-years-old and originally from South Sudan, Adau says last year she was lured to the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia, on the promise of a full-time job.

She had applied to the Alabuga Start programme, a recruitment scheme targeting 18-to-22-year-old women, mostly from Africa but also increasingly from Latin America and South-East Asia. It promises participants professional training in areas including logistics, catering and hospitality.

His Excellency, Mr. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations,

Presidents,

Prime Ministers,

Heads of State,

Permanent Representatives to the United Nations,

Ukraine's energy and justice ministers have resigned in the wake of a major investigation into corruption in the country's energy sector.

President Volodymyr Zelensky called for Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk and Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko's removal on Wednesday. 

Major corruption scandal engulfs top Zelensky allies

BY Laura Gozzi

Lachlan Murdoch won the battle to follow in his father’s footsteps and obtain control over News Corp, a media conglomerate in decline. Is he up for it? David Tyler asks.

Imagine inheriting a media empire after spending $1.1B per sibling just to buy them off. Then discovering you’ve just spent billions to secure control of something that looks glorious on the surface but is, underneath, a paper tiger gasping for oxygen. That’s Lachlan Murdoch in 2025.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has insisted he runs a "united team" after a senior minister was forced to repeatedly deny that he planned to oust the embattled premier.

Sir Keir's comments came after Downing Street sources said Britain's leader would fight off any leadership challenge, as the anonymous briefing exposed tensions at the heart of the beleaguered government.

Rumours are swirling in the UK parliament that some ministers, including his Health Secretary Wes Streeting, are plotting to challenge Sir Keir following a budget due later this month, in which Labour is expected to break a manifesto pledge on raising income tax.

Western military analysts frequently deride and ridicule the Russian military for its slow-pace of advance in taking back territory from Ukraine in 2023 and 2024. But the perceived slow-advance was not the result of poor leadership or bad tactics… It was a manpower issue. On the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (which began on February 24, 2022), the Russian Armed Forces significantly outnumbered those of Ukraine in terms of active personnel. But even that number is misleading. If you are going to capture defensive positions held by Ukraine, you need ground forces.

One Reason the Russian Military Advanced Slowly in 2023 and 2024

by Larry C. Johnson

At the end of World War II in 1945, international relations quickly coalesced around two superpowers (the USA and the USSR), giving rise to a bipolar world. Since then, the quest for a balance of power, fueled by the space race and the expansion of spheres of influence, has fostered a logic of escalation and a mutual perception of threat that continues to divide relations between Washington and Moscow today.

Trump is fighting neither for peace, nor for Ukraine, much less for Russia, but for the survival of the United States

Mohamed Lamine KABA

It beggars belief that the outgoing head of the RSL, Greg Melick, has abused the quiet solemnity of Remembrance Day to lecture and berate the Albanese government on its defence policy.

Worse, he carelessly flung around the tired epithet of ‘appeasement’ at the Prime Minister and his Ministers.

Paul Keating

Yet this is a government that has consistently said it will ensure Australia has what it needs to provide for the defence of Australia. And is currently hosting major US military apparatus here. Indeed, the Government is currently preparing the next iteration of its Defence Strategic Review.

In succumbing to a lust for the limelight, the ASIO director, Mike Burgess, is not making it easier for the government and citizens to retain confidence in him and the organisation he’s trying to run.

Unlike his predecessors, all of whom kept low profiles, Burgess has thrust himself into the public square with statements and speeches in which he’s shown an appetite for lurid half stories, boasting, questionable judgment and a fragility with evidence.

Paddy Gourley

In the last few years Burgess has said that:

For decades, Washington treated Damascus as untouchable. Now, for the first time since Syria gained independence in 1946, a Syrian head of state has walked through the doors of the White House. Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s official visit to Washington marks a remarkable moment – not only for Syria-US relations, but for the broader political landscape of the Middle East. A handshake that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago now signals a subtle but significant shift in how the West perceives Damascus.

A ‘historic’ visit wrapped in old distrust: The harsh truth about Syria’s White House moment
Al-Sharaa’s visit to Washington was hailed as historic – yet behind the smiles lie sanctions, red lines, and a fragile balance of power