PESHAWAR, Pakistan/KABUL, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed on Friday to extend their 48-hour ceasefire until the conclusion of talks in Doha, according to three Pakistani security officials and one Afghan Taliban source.

President Donald Trump said on Friday that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro does not want to “fuck around” with the United States, amid escalating tensions between Washington and Caracas.

The U.S. military is holding two survivors aboard a Navy ship after rescuing them from a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean hit by a U.S. strike that killed two others, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

India has refused drugmakers’ requests to extend a year-end deadline for them to upgrade their manufacturing facilities to international standards, four sources said, amid public anger over the recent deaths of at least 24 children who consumed locally-produced cough syrup.

A judge has slammed the vicious murder of a “blameless peacemaker” as he threw the man’s killer behind bars for two decades.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu survived two no-confidence votes in parliament, winning a temporary reprieve for his days-old government and the chance to deliver a budget for 2026.

Venezuela has asked the United Nations Security Council to determine that deadly U.S. strikes on vessels off its coast are illegal and issue a statement backing Venezuela’s sovereignty, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, on the eve of talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, that momentum in the Middle East peace process would help end his country’s more than 3-1/2-year-old war with Russia.

France and Britain, in coordination with the United States, are working to finalise a U.N. Security Council resolution in the coming days that would lay the foundation for a future international force in Gaza, France said.

China accused the U.S. of stoking panic over its rare earth controls and said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had made “grossly distorted” remarks about a top Chinese trade negotiator, rejecting a White House call to roll back the curbs.

The leader of the Pakistani Taliban appeared in a video Thursday to prove he was still alive, a week after an apparent attempt to assassinate him with an airstrike in Afghanistan provoked the most serious clash between the neighbours in decades.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on Thursday to another summit to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, one day before the U.S. president was due to speak with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy.