MEXICO: A woman and two children drowned in the Rio Grande as they tried to enter the United States on Friday night after Texas military officers prevented federal border officials from aiding them.

The deaths come as a dispute over immigration intensifies between Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the administration of US President Joe Biden, with a record number of migrants having illegally crossed the border since 2021.

COLOMBIA: The death toll from a landslide north-west Colombia rose to at least 34 people over the weekend, with children accounting for most of the victims, as some 60 people sought shelter from an earlier landslide.

The earlier landslide had already closed the road connecting the cities of Medellin and Quibdo so people left their cars and sheltered in a house near the community of Carmen de Atrato.

TURKEY: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intensified his country’s attack on the semi-autonomous Kurdish regions of neighbouring Iraq and Syria on Saturday after Kurdish fighters killed nine Turkish soldiers at a military base in Iraq.

The defence ministry said fighter jets destroyed caves, bunkers, shelters and oil facilities in what it claimed was an action “to eliminate terrorist attacks against our people and security forces ... and to ensure our border security.”

AFGHANISTAN: Senior Pakistani politician Fazlur Rehman became the first from the country to visit Afghanistan and meet with the Taliban supreme leader this week to discuss foreign affairs.

Mr Rehman’s Jamiat Ulema Islam party is known for backing the Taliban in their 2021 takeover and was said to be hoping to reduce tensions between the two countries and to “put an end to old resentments.”