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Asuncion (AFP) – Paraguayan police seizes 3,312 kilos of cocaine stashed in rice bags, bound from South America to Europe. The shipment is valued at 1.4 billion US dollars. IMAGES

Rafah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – “Where is UNRWA, where is the United Nations and the whole world? This is an injustice.” Inside a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees-run school in Rafah, damaged by Israeli strikes, displaced Palestinians have been taking refuge from the incessant bombing. Israel has bombed Gaza for more than two weeks after Hamas gunmen carried out the worst attack in Israel’s 75-year history. 1,400 people were killed in Israel during the October 7 attack, according to Israeli officials. Over 5,700 have been killed in Gaza since, according to the Hamas-run health ministry

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) – A train driver’s cabin and 35 buses were set ablaze in Rio de Janeiro by suspected paramilitary militia members after a police operation killed one of their leaders. State Governor Claudio Castro said the operation killed the nephew and right-hand-man of a militia boss known as “Zhino”, the group’s alleged leader in the region. 12 people were arrested for suspected terrorist actions.

Stockholm (AFP) – “It is encouraging that Turkish President Erdogan has now handed over the ratification protocol to the Turkish Parliament,” says Swedish PM Ulf Kristersson. Kristersson was speaking at a press conference following the announcement of President Erdogan officially submitting Sweden’s NATO membership application to its national parliament on 23 October. Ankara has accused Sweden of harbouring outlawed Kurdish militants, and has demanded their extradition.

El Papayo (Mexico) (AFP) – Forensics work at the scene where an armed attack left at least 13 people dead, including 11 police officers, in Guerrero state, a region of Mexico plagued by violence related to drug trafficking. A second attack in the neighboring western state of Michoacan and a third in the central state of Puebla left at least 11 others dead.

Manaus (Brazil) (AFP) – Extreme drought in parts of the Amazon has revealed carvings of human forms on dozens of usually submerged rock formations. The engravings, visible near the northwestern Brazilian city of Manaus may date back some 2,000 years. Severe droughts in the Amazon have drastically reduced river levels, affecting a region that depends on a network of waterways for transportation and supplies.

Tel Aviv (AFP) – An 85-year-old Israeli freed after more than two weeks of captivity by Hamas militants in war-torn Gaza says she “went through hell” during her abduction. One of two elderly hostages freed late Monday, Yocheved Lifshitz recounted how the militants “went on a rampage in our kibbutz, kidnapped me, lay me over a motorcycle… and sped off with me through the ploughed fields”. International pressure has built for the release of the more than 200 other Israeli and foreign nationals still trapped inside Gaza amid withering Israeli bombardment sparked by the deadly Hamas attacks of October 7.

Željava (Croatia) (AFP) – Once a behemoth armed with a fleet of Soviet fighter jets, the Zeljava airbase carved into a mountain between Bosnia and Croatia and designed to withstand a nuclear strike has been sitting idle for decades. The airbase was constructed in secrecy in the 1960s in what was then Yugoslavia, before being destroyed during the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Jerusalem (AFP) – Talking during a visit in Jerusalem, French President Emmanuel Macron calls for the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group to be expanded to include the militant group Hamas, that launched a bloody attack on Israel on October 7.

Jerusalem (AFP) – “The first objective we should have today is the release of all hostages” says French President Emmanuel Macron at a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem. Macron’s visit added to the chorus of Western support for Israel after Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out an attack on the country on 7 October. 30 French people were killed in the onslaught and nine French people are missing, with at least one confirmed to be among more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas. Israel says Palestinian militants killed more than 1,400 people. The Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip says relentless Israeli bombardment of the besieged enclave has killed more than 5,000 people, including more than 1,800 children.