New York (AFP) - A UN special rapporteur has urged Malaysia to halt the ongoing repatriation of Myanmar nationals, warning that returning them amid continuing conflict could violate the principle of non-refoulement. “I am gravely concerned the Government of Malaysia has begun to return 5,000 Myanmar nationals, including women and children, under a so-called ‘voluntary repatriation program’ agreed with the military authorities in Myanmar,” Kelley Currie, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said in a statement. Malaysia began repatriating the first group of 1,476 people on Sept. 29, according to the statement. Currie said the risk of refoulement under current circumstances was “substantial,” stressing that conditions for a “safe, dignified, sustainable, and genuinely voluntary” return were not in place.

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BRUSSELS (AFP) - Student protests continued Friday in Belgium’s Liege region, with hundreds of young people gathering at schools and several locations across the province as police made multiple arrests. In Herstal, a municipality in Liege province, police made 18 administrative arrests after officers intervened against what Mayor Frederic Daerden described as “threatening and violent individuals,” according to broadcaster RTBF. In Liege, several groups of students gathered in the city center, with police saying between 500 and 600 demonstrators passed by several schools during the morning. Authorities reported several incidents during the demonstrations, including attempts to enter schools, overturned street furniture and objects thrown at school buildings. Several businesses were also damaged, while several scooters were set on fire, according to police.

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BUENOS AIRES (AP) - Argentina rejected British criticism Thursday of its decision to seek international arbitration about oil exploration around the Falkland Islands, which Buenos Aires calls Islas Malvinas. It said an independent international tribunal is the appropriate mechanism to resolve the dispute peacefully. “Nothing has to be feared from submitting a dispute to an impartial international tribunal,” Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said in a statement on U.S. social media platform X. Quirno said Buenos Aires rejected Britain’s characterization of the arbitration as an attempt to “undermine” the rights of Falkland Islanders. Argentina said resorting to arbitration under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is a legal procedure accepted by both countries and argued that international legal mechanisms provide the appropriate framework for resolving disputes.

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BANGKOK (Reuters) - Taiwan on Friday received the first two of 65 F-16V fighter jets ordered from the U.S., the island’s air force said, following years of delays. The two F-16V Block 70 jets landed at Chihhang Air Base in Taitung. There are 63 more to be delivered. Taiwan largely purchases arms from the U.S., its largest unofficial ally, to boost its defenses. China sends fighter jets and ships toward the island almost daily. Taiwan’s defense minister said on Tuesday that the island remains in continuous discussions with the U.S. about their weapons sales.

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PARIS (AFP) - A record 52 percent of Europe was exposed to intense heat stress during the exceptionally hot summer that seared the continent this year, the EU’s climate monitor said Friday. Fuelled by climate change, the world’s fastest-warming continent endured a relentless series of heatwaves that began unusually early in the spring, shattering temperature records and causing tens of thousands of excess deaths. “One of the things that stands out for 2026 is that the heat was not only remarkable for its intensity, but also for its geographical extent,” said Samantha Burgess, climate lead at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which operates Copernicus.