Argentina was the only country to vote against a United Nations resolution promoting the end of all forms of online violence against women and girls.

During Thursday’s UN General Assembly session, the South American nation argued that the resolution contained ambiguous terms such as “hate speech,” “misinformation,” and “disinformation” that could be used “abusively” to restrict freedom of expression.

A total of 170 nations voted in favor, while 13 others abstained, including Iran, Russia, Nicaragua, and North Korea.

Argentinian President Javier Milei has been a vocal critic of the UN, accusing the global body of trying to “impose an ideological agenda” while seeking to distance Argentina from the UN-sponsored 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

“We are at the end of a cycle. The collectivism and moral high ground from the woke agenda have crashed with reality, and they don’t offer credible solutions for the world’s problem,” he said from the podium at the UN General Assembly in September.

Thursday’s vote happened days after the country was, yet again, the only nation that voted against a UN resolution focused on the rights of indigenous people.

Milei, who ran on a libertarian platform, has rolled out drastic social and economic measures in Argentina since taking office.

His government has halted the purchase of essential supplies for abortion access, banned gender-inclusive language in official documents, and replaced the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity with a less powerful undersecretariat within the Ministry of Human Capital.

It also effectively closed the national anti-discrimination agency, saying the Ministry of Justice would absorb its functions.

During Milei’s presidential campaign, he and his party were accused of making offensive remarks against LGBTQ communities which were deemed hate speech by multiple groups, including Argentina’s National Observatory of LGBTQ Hate Crimes.

Nearly three-quarters of firearms recovered in several Caribbean nations with high crime rates were manufactured in the US, according to the US’s Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Almost 5,400 firearms recovered from crime scenes from 2018 to 2022 in several Caribbean nations – including Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago – can be sourced back to the US, the GAO said.

The GAO said they analyzed data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to determine that 88 percent of the recovered and traced firearms in the 25 Caribbean countries they reviewed were handguns.

Despite the lack of firearm manufacturing in the Caribbean, Haiti in particular has seen a dramatic escalation in gang-related violence in recent months, with most of the firepower used by the criminals originating in the US, the report said.

To counter illicit gun trafficking, the US funds trainings and programs through a security cooperation partnership with thirteen Caribbean countries to “uncover criminal networks responsible for trafficking firearms.”

However, the GAO report notes that the US could improve results from the partnership by establishing “specific indicators for its goal of reducing illicit firearms trafficking.”

Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person and close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, the New York Times reported, citing two Iranian officials.

The meeting between Musk and Iran’s envoy Amir Saeid Iravani was held at a secret location in New York and lasted more than an hour, the NYT reported, citing the Iranian officials, who reportedly described the discussion as focused on how to defuse tensions between the two countries.

The reported meeting comes as experts speculate that the next four years could pose a significant test for Iran. Tehran under Trump’s scrutiny could lead to a return of the “maximum pressure” campaign he imposed during his last presidency, which increased Iran’s isolation and crippled its economy, experts say.

Since Trump left office in 2020, Iran has ramped up enrichment of uranium, increased its oil exports, stepped up support for regional militant groups, and has set a precedent by striking Israel in a direct attack twice.

The billionaire’s reported conversation with the Iranian official raises questions about what his influence might look like in the incoming administration, especially when it comes to US foreign policy.

Just last week, the day after the presidential election, Musk joined Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to two sources. Trump put the call on speaker and Zelensky thanked Musk for his help with providing communications through Starlink to Ukraine in the ongoing war with Russia, a source added.

Trump announced Tuesday that Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency” in his second administration. Musk, who is the CEO of Space X and Tesla, has benefitted from billions of dollars worth of federal contracts, including from NASA, the military and other US government agencies, and the announcement raised immediate concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

It is not immediately clear how the department – which Trump said would “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government” – would operate, and whether a Congress even fully controlled by Republicans would have the appetite to approve such a massive overhaul of government spending and operations.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

David Knezevich, the South Florida businessman accused in the February disappearance of his estranged wife in Spain, is now charged with her murder.

A federal grand jury in Miami indicted Knezevich, 36, Wednesday on charges of kidnapping resulting in death, foreign domestic violence resulting in death, and foreign murder of a US national.

Ana Maria Henao disappeared in February while living in Madrid. Since then, authorities in Spain and across Europe have searched for Henao’s body, but have still not recovered it.

According to the new indictment, Knezevich traveled to Spain from Miami “with the intent to kill, injure, harass, and intimidate his spouse and intimate partner and committed a crime of violence against her, resulting in her death.”

Knezevich “did willfully and unlawfully seize, confine, kidnap, abduct, and carry away” Henao and did “willfully, deliberately, maliciously, and with premeditation and malice aforethought, unlawfully kill” Henao, according to the indictment.

Knezevich was arrested in May at Miami International Airport for his involvement in his wife’s kidnapping.

Henao’s family said the new charge confirms their worst fears.

“This is a step in the direction to start to mourn while we continue to search for answers and honor Ana’s memory by advocating for her story to be told and for accountability to prevail,” said Diego Henao, Ana’s brother.

“We will continue to rely on the strength and love of our friends, family, and community as we try to process this latest information,” said Ana’s mother, Aura Henao, of her family’s well-being.

If convicted of the newest charges, Knezevich could face the death penalty.

“The FBI has presented overwhelming evidence that he is responsible for her disappearance, and I am happy the case against him is getting stronger,” said Henao’s friend Sanna Rameau, one of the last people to speak to her. “Justice will be served.”

The couple was in the middle of a contentious divorce.

Prosecutors said Knezevich traveled from Miami to Turkey and later to his native home of Serbia, where he rented a car and drove to Spain in late January.
They said he kidnapped Henao from her apartment and spray-painted cameras at her building in Madrid. He was also seen leaving the apartment building with a suitcase, court records said.

According to court records, surveillance cameras captured Knezevich buying spray paint and duct tape at a hardware store in Madrid the same day Henao was last seen.

The owner of the rental car agency in Serbia told investigators that when the car was returned in mid-March, someone had tinted its windows and added a new license plate frame, and it had traveled nearly 4,800 miles, the criminal complaint said.

Tollbooth cameras captured images of the same model Peugeot, with tinted windows, near Madrid in the late night and early morning of February 2 and 3. The complaint said the vehicle’s license plates were stolen from another vehicle on the street in Madrid where Henao was living.

New Zealand’s parliament was briefly suspended on Thursday after Maori members staged a haka to disrupt the vote on a contentious bill that would reinterpret a 184-year-old treaty between the British and Indigenous Maori.

First signed in 1840 between the British Crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs, the Treaty of Waitangi lays down how the two parties agreed to govern. The interpretation of clauses in the document still guides legislation and policy today.

Rulings by the courts and a separate Maori tribunal have progressively expanded Maori rights and privileges over the decades. However, some argue this has discriminated against non-Indigenous citizens.

The ACT New Zealand party, a junior partner in the ruling center-right coalition government, last week unveiled a bill to enshrine a narrower interpretation of the Waitangi treaty in law.

As parliamentarians gathered for a preliminary vote on the bill on Thursday, Te Pati Maori MPs stood and began a haka, a traditional Maori dance made famous by New Zealand’s rugby team.

Parliament was briefly suspended as people in the gallery joined in, and shouting drowned out others in the chamber.

ACT New Zealand leader David Seymour said people who oppose the bill want to “stir up” fear and division. “My mission is to empower every person,” he added.

The controversial legislation, however, is seen by many Maori and their supporters as undermining the rights of the country’s Indigenous people, who make up around 20% of the population of 5.3 million.

Hundreds have set out on a nine-day march, or hikoi, from New Zealand’s north to the national capital of Wellington in protest over the legislation, staging rallies in towns and cities as they move south.

They will arrive in Wellington next Tuesday where tens of thousands are expected to gather for a big rally.

While the bill has passed its first reading, it is unlikely to garner enough support to pass into law.

Coalition partners the National Party and New Zealand First are only supporting the legislation through the first of three readings as part of the coalition agreement. Both parties have said they will not support it to become legislation, meaning it will almost certainly fail.

It took more than a day for rescuers to find Ulyana Kulyk’s tiny body in the rubble.

She was just two months old when a Russian missile hit her home in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Monday morning. Her father was the sole survivor.

Ukrainian officials said it was one of several strikes targeting southern and central cities that morning and the latest in a string of nearly weekly strikes against residential buildings in Kryvyi Rih, many of them deadly.

The city lies some 70 kilometers (40 miles) from the southern Ukrainian front line.

The UN children’s agency UNICEF said that tragic stories like the one of Ulyana and her family “have become the norm in Ukraine as attacks on populated areas continue.”

“In the first 12 days of November, intense and sustained attacks have killed at least four children and injured more than twenty,” the organization said.

Photographs and videos from the scene give a glimpse of the incredible force with which the ballistic missile struck their apartment block. The five-story building looks as if it was sliced in half, with a huge chunk of it missing in the middle.

Ulyana’s mother Olena, 32, and brothers Kyrylo, 10, and Demyd, 2, were all killed. Her father Maksym likely only survived because he was in the kitchen cooking the family breakfast when the building was struck, according to local media.

“I don’t want to live. And today I was supposed to be here with you, the fifth,” Maksym Kulyk said at his children’s and wife’s joint funeral on Thursday.

The funeral was a heart-wrenching affair. Four coffins of the same design and varying sizes, showered with flowers and toys, as dozens of family and friends, including many children, came to say goodbye to the family.

As Kulyk spoke, addressing each of his children and his wife, another air raid siren sounded in the city – as if those attending the funeral needed a reminder that the conflict was still raging.

Olena was an employee of Steel Service, a subsidiary of global giant ArcelorMittal, and was on maternity leave at the time of the attack.

“My soul, my blood, my heart, my support and strength, my rear. I love you so much. I will always love you,” Kulyk said about her.

Kyrylo, the oldest of the three children, was described by his father as his “best friend” and by staff at his school as “a bright light for everyone who knew him.”

“He was only 10 years old, but his short life was full of joy, dreams and boundless love. His smile, carefree laugh and inexhaustible energy brought joy not only to his family, but also to his friends, classmates, teachers and everyone around him,” the 103rd School in Kryvyi Rih said in a statement on Facebook. It said the fourth grader loved reading books, exploring the world and playing football.

“Demyd. I bathed you, slept with you, fed you, went for walks with you. You always said ‘daddy’,” Kulyk said, adding that he was looking forward to Ulyana becoming a “daddy’s girl.”

Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s ombudsman, pointed out that all of the children had been born since the conflict with Russia started in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

“A two-month-old girl and boys aged two and 10. These children were born during the war. The 10-year-old boy was born when Russia started its armed aggression against Ukraine. The two-year-old was born when Russia launched a full-scale invasion. The girl was born only recently,” he said in a statement.

The local authorities in Kryvyi Rih declared Wednesday an official day of mourning.

The city has seen a number of ballistic missile strikes in recent weeks. Two, each killing two people and injuring more than a dozen, struck Kryvyi Rih within one week earlier this month. In September, at least 10 people, including a 12-year-old child, were killed in three separate missile strikes.

900 bombs in one week

The frequent waves of aerial attacks come as Ukraine struggles to repel Russian advances in eastern Ukraine. At the same time, Russia appears to be preparing for a counteroffensive in its southern Kursk region, deploying tens of thousands troops into the area, according to Ukrainian and US officials.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that in just one week, Russia dropped more than 900 bombs and launched some 30 missiles and nearly 500 drones across Ukraine. He said that most of the strikes were directed against civilian objects and critical infrastructure.

Zelensky and his wife Olena Zelenska are from Kryvyi Rih, a city that lies some 70 kilometers (40 miles) from the southern Ukrainian front line.

When the news of the three children killed in the city emerged on Tuesday, Zelenska paid tribute to the victims and made yet another emotional plea to Ukraine’s allies.

“Our only dream is that such a tragedy will never happen again. But the murders cannot be stopped by words. I want everyone who can help us stop the enemy and the grief (the enemy) brings to Ukraine to hear me. Please don’t look for reasons to postpone your help until later. Children must live,” she said in a post on her Telegram channel.

Ukraine marked 1,000 days since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 on Tuesday, with many inside the country and elsewhere worried about the impact of former President Donald Trump’s second term in office on the conflict. Trump has previously said he would end the conflict “in 24 hours,” without revealing any details as to how.

French prosecutors have asked for prison time and a five-year ban from politics for far-right leader Marine Le Pen, potentially derailing her bid to become president in 2027.

Le Pen, her National Rally (RN) party and more than 20 of its members are accused of using European Parliament money to pay staff who were in fact working for RN in France, allegations they deny.

After almost six weeks of hearings at the Paris criminal court, French prosecutors announced on Wednesday that they were requesting a sentence for Le Pen of five years of imprisonment (with three years suspended) and the imposition of five years of ineligibility from politics.

The prosecution also asked that the RN should be fined €2 million ($2.1 million) and Le Pen herself €300,000 ($316,000).

The prosecutors also asked that the ineligibility sentence was given “with provisional execution,” meaning it would take place immediately and Le Pen could not stand for new elections during this period, even if appeals were filed against the court’s decision.

Speaking to journalists after the hearing, Le Pen claimed this was an attack on democracy and an attempt by the prosecutor to bar her from the political scene: “The only thing that interested the prosecution was ‘Marine Le Pen’… asking once again for her exclusion from political life and to deprive the French… of the ability to vote for whoever they want.”

Patrick Maisonneuve, a lawyer for the European Parliament, told reporters on Wednesday: “I often hear the elected members of the National Rally when it comes to a theft of €50, saying that justice must be swift, it must be firm, it must be severe.”

He added, “So, when we have embezzled, because that is what it is, €4.5 million to the detriment of the European Parliament, therefore of taxpayers and in particular French taxpayers. Let’s not cry scandal.”

Maisonneuve said that the prosecutors explained that case was not about preventing anyone running for election but establishing that every citizen was equal before the law.

Meanwhile, the severity of the proposed sentence prompted RN to launch the hashtag #jesoutiensmarine (“I am behind Marine”) on X that party officials have used with a photo of themselves with Le Pen.

The far-right leader also received support from her political allies and elsewhere. Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who wrote on X that the prosecutors’ move was an attempt to “stop the popular will and the democratic wind of change.”

A more unexpected supporter of Le Pen was former French interior minister Gerald Darmanin who wrote on X that that it would be “deeply shocking” if she was deemed ineligible. “Fighting Madame Le Pen is done at the ballot box, not elsewhere,” Darmanin added.

Despite the support, an ineligibility sentence – if confirmed by the court decision – could be very bad news for Le Pen, who is seen as a prime contender in France’s next presidential elections in 2027.

Le Pen has already run in three presidential elections, and increased her share of the vote each time. She finished third behind François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012 with 17.9% of the vote. Then she lost to French President Emmanuel Macron in both 2017 and 2022 with 33.9% and 41.5% of the vote respectively.

Macron called a stunning snap election in June after his party was trounced by Le Pen’s RN in the European parliamentary elections. In the subsequent national vote a month later, the left-wing bloc New Popular Front (NFP) won the most seats but not enough for an absolute majority. Macron’s centrist Ensemble came second and Le Pen’s RN placed third.

Initially, RN was closer to the gates of power than ever before, then foiled mainly due to scores of left-wing and centrist candidates withdrawing from the second round of the election in a strategic bid to avoid splitting the vote.

The hung parliament led to months of stalemate before Macron finally revealed his cabinet in September, with a noticeable shift to the right.

Fifteen people were killed and 16 others injured in Israeli strikes on Damascus in Syria, state media SANA said, citing a military source and marking one of the deadliest strikes in months to hit the Syrian capital.

The strikes targeted several residential buildings in the upscale Mezzah neighborhood in the capital and the Qudsaya area in the Damascus countryside, Syrian state media reported. Among those killed were women and children, Syrian state media added.

The Israeli military said in a statement it was striking targets of the Islamic Jihad in Syria earlier Thursday and had “inflicted significant damage to the terrorist organization’s command center and to its operatives.”

Syrian state media said: “The Israeli enemy launched an aerial attack from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting several residential buildings in the Mezzah neighborhood of Damascus and the Qudsaya area in the Damascus countryside.

“This resulted in the martyrdom of fifteen people and the injury of sixteen others, including women and children, as an initial toll, along with significant material damage to private property and the targeted and neighboring buildings,” Syrian state media said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Fireworks likely caused the death of a baby red panda at Edinburgh Zoo after she became so stressed that she choked on her own vomit, experts from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) said on Thursday.

Three-month-old Roxie died on November 5, known as Bonfire Night in the UK when several firework displays light up the night sky to mark the anniversary of a failed plot to blow up London’s Houses of Parliament in 1605.

Roxie’s mother Ginger had died a few days earlier but the baby red panda “was responding well to specialist care from our expert team and was feeding independently,” said RZSS deputy chief executive Ben Supple in a statement.

“Roxie had access to her den but the frightening noises seem to have been too much for her,” he added. “We know that fireworks can cause stress to other animals in the zoo and we cannot rule out that they may have contributed to the untimely death of Roxie’s mother Ginger, just five days’ earlier.”

Red pandas are classified as an endangered species, with their numbers decreasing in the wild.

RZSS, a wildlife conservation charity that runs Edinburgh Zoo, is now calling for tighter restrictions on fireworks given the risks they pose to animal welfare. The organization also pointed to a public petition that has been signed by more than 1 million people and was delivered to the UK government last week.

Its stance aligns with other animal welfare organizations like the RSPCA, which said it had received more than 13,000 survey responses in three years describing animals’ fear responses to fireworks.

There have been other instances of animals dying as a result of fireworks. Like Roxie, a baby zebra died after being spooked by the sounds of fireworks at Bristol Zoo in November 2020.

“Fireworks can cause fear and distress for pets, livestock and animals in zoos, so it is essential that the UK and Scottish governments tighten restrictions on their sale and use,” Supple added.

“We support calls from animal welfare charities to ban the sale of fireworks to the public, with only light displays being permitted at organised events. This would help avoid devastating consequences for animals like Roxie while ensuring that people can still enjoy traditional celebrations,” he said.

Currently, it is illegal to set off fireworks in the UK between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. except for Bonfire Night, New Year’s Eve, Diwali and Chinese New Year. Fireworks can be sold by registered sellers for private use between October 15 and November 10, December 26-31 and the three days before Diwali and Chinese New Year.

A 2019 parliamentary inquiry into the issue concluded that a ban on public sales of fireworks would likely be “ineffective” and have a “substantial economic effect.” However, it recommended that the government work with animal welfare experts to set a reduced maximum noise level, and with local authorities to limit the number of private firework displays at events like birthdays or weddings.

“We endeavour to keep pets and the public safe and that’s why we launched a new fireworks safety campaign this season to help people use them safely and appropriately.”

South Africa’s government says it will not help about 4,000 illegal miners inside a closed mine in the country’s North West province as part of an official policy against illegal mining.

The miners in the mineshaft in Stilfontein are believed to be suffering from a lack of food, water and other basic necessities after police closed off the entrances used to transport their supplies underground.

It is part of the police’s Vala Umgodi, or Close the Hole, operation, which includes cutting off miners’ supplies to force them to return to the surface and be arrested.

In the last few weeks, over 1,000 miners have surfaced at various mines in North West province, with many reported to be weak, hungry and sickly after going for weeks without basic supplies.

About 20 miners have surfaced from the mineshaft in Stilfontein this week as police guard areas around the mine to catch all those appearing from underground.

Cabinet Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters on Wednesday that the government would not send any help to the illegal miners because they are involved in a criminal act.

“We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out. Criminals are not to be helped; criminals are to be prosecuted. We didn’t send them there,” Ntshavheni said.

Illegal mining remains common in South Africa’s old gold-mining areas, with miners going into closed shafts to dig for any possible remaining deposits.

The illegal miners are often from neighboring countries, and police say the illegal operations involve larger syndicates that employ the miners.

Their presence in closed mines have also created problems with nearby communities, which complain that the illegal miners commit crimes ranging from robberies to rape.

Illegal mining groups are known to be heavily armed and disputes between rival groups sometimes result in fatal confrontations.