Israel’s government has approved “phase one” of the agreement, which will see captives exchanged and Israel withdraw from parts of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Trump and US officials for their role in ceasefire negotiations to end the war on Gaza.
Here is how things stand on Friday, October 10, 2025:
Young Moroccan protesters have taken to the streets again in the hope of persuading King Mohammed VI to fire Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch and deliver long-promised reforms to ailing public services.
The leaderless Gen Z 212 collective staged anticorruption protests in Tangiers, Casablanca and in the capital, Rabat, on Thursday in a final display of strength before the king’s address to parliament scheduled for later on Friday.
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“We no longer have confidence in the government. We’re waiting for the king to talk to us, he has to save his people,” Raghd, a 23-year-old engineer who did not want to give his last name, told the AFP news agency at a protest in the capital, Rabat.
The protests erupted last month after eight pregnant women died at a hospital in Agadir and have targeted issues like Morocco’s lavish spending on infrastructure, such as stadiums for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, amid the neglect of facilities for healthcare and education.
Gen Z 212 has been organising the nationwide protests, which have so far seen at least three people killed in clashes with security forces, on social media platforms like TikTok and Discord, where it now has more than 200,000 followers.
Ahead of Thursday evening’s demonstrations, government spokesperson Mustapha Baitas made new calls for dialogue with Gen Z 212. “The message has been received,” he was quoted by AFP as saying. He stressed that the authorities were “accelerating projects”, particularly in healthcare.
Last week, Gen Z 212 published a public letter to the king, asking him to dismiss the government and corrupt political parties, release political detainees and convene a national forum to bring corruption to account.
“We, the youth of Morocco, are requesting your majesty to intervene for a profound and just reform that restores rights and punish the corrupt,” the group wrote in the letter.
Since 27 September, security forces have arrested hundreds of participants in clashes that rights groups have criticised as heavy-handed.
Belgian authorities say they have arrested three people in connection with a plot to attack Prime Minister Bart De Wever and other politicians using drone-mounted explosives.
Federal prosecutor Ann Fransen announced the arrests on Thursday and said the group were under investigation for an “attempted terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group”, according to Belgian public broadcaster RTBF.
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“Certain elements indicate that the suspects intended to carry out a jihadist-inspired terrorist attack against political figures,” Fransen told reporters.
“There are also indications that the suspects aimed to construct a drone to which a payload could be attached,” she added.
Fransen did not name their intended targets, but social media posts from senior figures in De Wever’s government indicate that he was on the list.
“The news of a planned attack targeting Prime Minister Bart De Wever is deeply shocking,” wrote Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prevot in a post on X.
“I express my full support to the Prime Minister, his wife, and his family, as well as my gratitude to the security and justice services whose swift action prevented the worst.”
Defence Minister Theo Francken shared a similar message on X.
“Prime Minister, Bart, all our support for you and your family. Thanks to the security services. Never surrender,” he said.
De Wever did not immediately comment on the case.
Belgium’s Gazet van Antwerpen newspaper said explosives were found by police in an Antwerp building a few hundred metres from De Wever’s residence.
Evidence included an improvised explosive device still under construction, a bag of steel balls, and a 3D printer, the newspaper said. Police believe the group were trying to build a drone capable of carrying an explosive payload.
Authorities did not release the names of the suspects but said they had been born in 2001, 2002, and 2007.
One of the suspects has been released, according to Fransen, and two are due to appear before an investigating judge on Friday.
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize is scheduled to be announced on Friday, October 10, at 11:00 am local time in Oslo, Norway (09:00 GMT).
The announcement comes from the Norwegian Nobel Institute on behalf of the all-Norwegian, five-member Nobel Committee, appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and responsible for selecting and presenting the laureates.
Nominations for this year’s award closed on January 31, and the selection process remains shrouded in secrecy.
The Nobel Prizes are named after Alfred Nobel (1833–1896), a Swedish chemist, engineer and industrialist best known for inventing dynamite, an explosive that transformed the modern world through advances in construction and mining, but which was also responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people in wars.
Motivated by a desire to shape his legacy, Nobel left a multimillion-dollar fortune to fund annual prizes, awarded to those who “have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind” in the preceding year.
The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901 for outstanding achievement in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace.
In 1968, Sweden’s central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, established the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, expanding the categories to six.
So far this year, four Nobel Prizes have been announced. After the Peace Prize on October 10, the final award for economics will be revealed on October 13.
The Nobel Peace Prize is meant to recognise individuals and organisations that have made exceptional efforts to promote peace, resolve conflicts and advance human rights.
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize has 338 nominees, including 244 individuals and 94 organisations, up from 286 candidates in 2024.
Nominations are kept confidential, and committee members are prohibited from discussing their decisions for 50 years. Only the nominators themselves may choose to disclose their submissions.
While a person cannot nominate themselves, they may be nominated multiple times by others.
This year, United States President Donald Trump has become a focus of Nobel Peace Prize nominations. Trump, who has said, “Everyone says I should get the Nobel Peace Prize,” has received several endorsements: Israel, Cambodia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan, even as many have questioned his credentials.
While many well-known figures have been nominated in the past but never received the Nobel Peace Prize, the names most frequently searched in the Nobel nomination database are Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi and Joseph Stalin.
These individuals represent vastly different legacies: Hitler was nominated in 1939 as a satirical gesture, Gandhi was nominated multiple times between 1937 and 1948 but never awarded, and Stalin was nominated in 1945 and 1948 for his role in ending World War II.
As of 2024, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 105 times to 142 laureates – 111 individuals and 31 organisations.
Among the individual recipients, 92 are men and 19 are women.
The youngest laureate to date is Malala Yousafzai, who received the award at the age of 17 in 2014, while the oldest is Joseph Rotblat, honoured at 86 for his work against nuclear weapons.
The International Committee of the Red Cross holds the record for the most Peace Prizes, having been recognised three times, followed by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which has won twice.
Geographically, Europe accounts for the largest share of laureates at 45 percent, followed by North America (20 percent), Asia (16 percent), Africa (9 percent) and South America (3 percent).
In addition, United Nations organisations represent about 7 percent of all Nobel Peace Prize recipients.
The Nobel Peace Prize has not been awarded every year.
It was skipped on 19 occasions, specifically in 1914–1916, 1918, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1939–1943, 1948, 1955–1956, 1966–1967, and 1972, usually due to war or the absence of a suitable candidate.
According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, if none of the candidates’ work is deemed significant enough, the prize may be withheld and the prize money carried forward to the next year. If it still cannot be awarded, the amount is transferred to the Foundation’s restricted funds.
One notable instance came in 1948, the year Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. Gandhi had been nominated several times – in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947, and again in 1948 – for his nonviolent leadership of India’s freedom movement. In 1948, the Nobel Committee chose not to award the prize, citing “no suitable living candidate”, widely seen as an implicit tribute to him.
The Nobel Peace Prize has only been refused on one occasion.
In 1973, Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were awarded the prize for their efforts to end the Vietnam War.
Tho declined the award, citing the ongoing conflict in Vietnam.
The Vietnam War lasted from the late 1950s to 1975, ending with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, and killed millions of people.
Yes, very often. Out of the 105 awards presented so far:
According to the Nobel Foundation’s statutes, a prize can be divided equally between two recipients or shared among up to three if their work is considered to merit the award jointly. The prize cannot be divided among more than three people.
BREAKINGBREAKING,
An earthquake of magnitude 7.6 has struck offshore in the southern Philippines, the country’s seismology agency said, with a tsunami warning issued and people in nearby coastal areas urged to evacuate to higher ground.
The strong quake struck on Friday in waters off Manay town in Davao Oriental in the Mindanao region at a depth of 10 kilometres (six miles).
“Wave heights of more than one metre above normal tides” should be expected, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said in a tsunami warning.
Tsunami waves may be higher along enclosed bays and straits, the institute said.
The institute “strongly advised” people living in several regions to immediately evacuate to higher ground and further inland.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
