President-elect Donald Trump kicked off his post-election "thank you tour" with a campaign-style speech that rails against globalisation, as he vowed to close US borders to migrants from Middle East countries and promised the return of manufacturing jobs for American workers.
President Francois Hollande shocked France by announcing he would not seek a second term next year, acknowledging his deep unpopularity and making way for another leftist candidate to take on conservative Francois Fillon and far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, 64, became Thailand's new king after he accepted an invitation from parliament to succeed his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
South Korea and Japan said they would impose new unilateral sanctions on North Korea on Friday over Pyongyang's continued nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
Bolivian authorities suspended the license of a tiny charter airline whose plane crashed in Colombia this week after apparently running out of fuel, killing 71 people and wiping out a Brazilian soccer team on its way to a regional cup final.
About 30,000 people are receiving aid after fleeing the besieged eastern zone of Aleppo in the past few days, taking the total number of displaced people in the Syrian city to more than 400,000, UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura said. Syria and Russia have declined a UN request for a pause in the fighting to evacuate 400 sick and wounded, but Russia wants to discuss the idea of setting up four humanitarian corridors: "A humanitarian corridor can work if all the armed actors respect it."
Thousands of white-clad Muslims streamed towards a central Jakarta park, gathering for a rally expected to draw more than 1,00,000 Indonesians demanding the arrest of the capital's governor, a Christian accused of insulting the Koran.
South Korea's opposition parties have agreed to propose a motion to impeach President Park Geun-hye over a corruption scandal and bring it to a vote on 9 December, a spokesman for the main opposition Democratic Party said.
Outgoing United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon apologised to the people of Haiti for the world body's role in a deadly cholera outbreak blamed on Nepali UN peacekeepers, that had killed more than 9,300 people.
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