Heavy rains in southeastern Brazil leave at least 30 dead
At least 30 people died and hundreds were displaced in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state on Tuesday (24 February) after relentless, record-breaking rainfa...
Nasry Asfura, the conservative candidate for Honduran president backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, was declared the winner on Wednesday more than three weeks after the 30 November election.
The Honduras electoral authority, known as the CNE, said Asfura won 40.3% of the vote, edging out center-right Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla who garnered 39.5%.
The candidate of the ruling LIBRE party, Rixi Moncada, came in a distant third.
Asfura ran on a broad pro-business platform saying private investment was necessary to move the country forward, while his political agenda focused on jobs, education and security.
The results were so close and the ballot processing system so chaotic that around 15% of the tally sheets, comprising hundreds of thousands of ballots, had to be counted by hand to determine the winner.
In the weeks following the vote, LIBRE repeatedly called for protests against what they denounced as an "electoral coup."
The protests interrupted the manual count, blocking officials from accessing the building where tally sheets were being stored.
The results were approved by two electoral council members and one deputy, as disputes continued over the razor-thin vote. The third council member, Marlon Ochoa, was not present in the video declaring the winner.
"Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down," Asfura said in a post on X following the confirmation of the results.
He is due to take office on 27 January for the 2026‑2030 term.
Nasralla rejected the CNE's declaration, saying it had excluded ballots that should have been counted, but urged his supporters to remain calm and refrain from any acts of disruption or violence.
"I will not accept a result based on omissions. Democracy does not shut down because of exhaustion, nor because today is the 24th — this is the saddest Christmas for the Honduran people," Nasralla said at a press conference.
The head of the Honduran Congress also rejected the results.
Further Iran-U.S. nuclear talks are scheduled in Geneva on Thursday (26 February) as diplomacy resumes over Tehran’s nuclear programme following earlier mediation efforts. But will the talks move Iran-U.S. negotiations closer to a deal, and what should be expected from the meeting?
The European Parliament’s trade chief has urged a temporary suspension of the EU–U.S. trade agreement approval, citing “tariff chaos” following President Donald Trump’s new 15% tariffs and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling invalidating his previous global tariff programme.
Iran has signed a secret €500 million arms deal with Russia to rebuild air defences, weakened during last year’s war with Israel, the Financial Times has reported. The agreement, signed in December in Moscow, will see Russia deliver 500 Verba launch units and 2,500 9M336 missiles over three years.
A British national was among at least 19 people killed when a passenger bus plunged off a mountain highway into the Trishuli river in Nepal before dawn on Monday (23 February), authorities said. A New Zealander and a Chinese national were among those injured.
Seven people were killed after gunmen ambushed a police patrol in Kohat, a district in Pakistan’s north-west near the Afghan border, on Tuesday, in an attack that comes amid rising militant violence and heightened tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is heading to Beijing on for his first official visit as chancellor, aiming to strengthen political and economic dialogue with China before tackling pressing international crises.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán should block financial support to Russia rather than Ukraine, as Budapest opposes the European Union’s 20th sanctions package against Moscow.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, has called for an immediate, full and unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine, describing the conflict as “a stain on our collective conscience”.
Newcastle United secured a 3–2 victory over Qarabağ FK in the return leg of the UEFA Champions League play-offs at St James’ Park.
Laurence des Cars, director of the Louvre Museum, has resigned months after a $102 million daylight heist at the museum, which prompted a parliamentary inquiry.
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