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Nov. 25 (UPI) — A diplomatic controversy with the United States spilled into Chile’s presidential campaign after the new U.S. ambassador, Brandon Judd, used his first public appearance to level sharp criticism at President Gabriel Boric, prompting a formal protest from the government.

During his initial press conference, Judd directly accused the Chilean president of “damaging the bilateral relationship” and undermining investment and strategic cooperation with the United States.

He said he was “disappointed” by Boric’s criticism of President Donald Trump‘s environmental policy and argued that such remarks “harm the Chilean people.”

He also made an explicit reference to the election, saying that “with governments that are ideologically aligned, it will be easier to work,” a comment widely interpreted as support for far-right candidate José Antonio Kast.

The government of Gabriel Boric responded with a formal note of protest.

Foreign Minister Alberto van Klaveren called the ambassador’s remarks “inappropriate and unfortunate” and said his comments on the political process “amount to interference in our country’s internal affairs,” a message delivered to the U.S. Embassy’s chargé d’affaires.

Regarding the issue, left-wing candidate Jeannette Jara said, “Chile doesn’t need any granddaddy looking after it, and that goes for the Americans, as well as any other country,” Emol reported.

She added that her government would maintain good relations with everyone, but expects “Chile’s sovereignty to be respected, as well.”

Right-wing candidate Kast questioned Judd’s intervention, but focused his criticism on the Chilean government.

“Every time our president leaves Chile, he creates a conflict with some foreign country,” he said. He then directed a message at the administration.

“Spend your time solving problems with other governments instead of sending protest notes,” Kast said.

In the hours that followed, the issue moved into Congress.

Opposition lawmakers urged Boric to receive the new ambassador’s credentials before the end of the month, arguing that the ceremony signals seriousness, stability and a normalization of the bilateral relationship to investors and partners.

The president of the Communist Party, Lautaro Carmona, accused the ambassador of interfering in the election by “indicating that one candidate would be better than another for the United States.”

At the center of the dispute are Chile’s regulatory rules.

Judd has argued that Chilean bureaucracy is delaying U.S. projects ready to invest, linking the political climate to the business environment and the need for clear timelines.

That narrative has seeped into the campaign, where credentials, protocol and signals to investors have become points of dispute and tools for political positioning before the electorate.

Chile’s presidential runoff will be held Dec. 14. Polls show Kast with a wide lead.

Search ongoing for fourth suspect as prosecutor’s office says the accused hold positions in critical defence companies operating inside Turkiye.

Three executives of defence companies have been arrested by Turkish authorities on suspicion of spying for foreign powers, prosecutors say.

“An operation was carried out on November 25, 2025, to apprehend four individuals identified in connection with the conspiracy,” the Istanbul public prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.

“As a result of the operation, three individuals were apprehended, and an arrest warrant was issued for one individual due to being abroad.”

It said the suspects “hold executive positions within critical defence companies operating in our country”.

They are accused of trying to provide “biographical” information about employees to foreign countries.

According to the AFP news agency, the prosecutor’s office initially said the suspects worked for the intelligence services of the United Arab Emirates before deleting that statement and publishing a significantly revised version on X that did not mention the UAE.

Turkey’s defence exports swelled by 29 percent ($7.15bn) in 2024, according to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, driven notably by the success of its military drones.

A sluggish job market lowers consumer confidence but may also lead to another rate cut from the Federal Reserve by the end of the year.

United States consumer confidence sagged in November as households worried about jobs and their financial situation, likely in part because of the recently ended government shutdown.

The Conference Board said on Tuesday its consumer confidence index dropped to 88.7 this month, from an upwardly revised 95.5 in October, hitting its lowest level since April.

Economists polled by the Reuters news agency had forecast the index edging down to 93.4 from the previously reported 94.6 in October.

“Consumers’ write-in responses pertaining to factors affecting the economy continued to be led by references to prices and inflation, tariffs and trade, and politics with increased mentions of the federal government shutdown,” said Dana Peterson, chief economist at the Conference Board.

“Mentions of the labour market eased somewhat but still stood out among all other frequent themes not already cited. The overall tone from November write-ins was slightly more negative than in October.”

Consumer confidence remained low among all income brackets. While confidence among those who make less than $15,000 annually ticked up slightly, it still remained the group with the lowest consumer confidence.

The consumer confidence report was released amid a slowing labour market. The September jobs report, released late last week, showed 119,000 jobs were added to the US economy as the unemployment rate ticked up 0.1 of a percentage point to 4.4 percent.

However, there is limited economic data available to fully gauge the sentiment of the US economy because the government shutdown, the longest in US history, hindered federal agencies’ ability to gather the data needed to assess current conditions.

“More worries about what lies ahead … hence, putting purchases for major items on hold,” Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO, wrote to Reuters.

The economic data followed dovish comments from policymakers in the past few days that helped cement rate cut expectations.

On Monday, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said the job market was weak enough to warrant another quarter-point rate cut in December although action beyond that depended on a flood of data that was delayed by the federal government shutdown.

Nov. 25 (UPI) — The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday released September data from its producer price index, showing modest increases in core wholesale prices that came in lower than experts had predicted.

The PPI for final demand products — what producers and manufacturers get paid for their goods and services sold to consumer businesses — in September increased 0.3%. But when excluding food, energy and trade services, BLS reported that final demand wholesale prices increased just 0.1% — half the expected 0.2% increase.

September’s data release was delayed by “the lapse in federal appropriations” caused by the 43-day federal government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, which the agency noted in its data report.

“While BLS completed data collection prior to the lapse, BLS could not complete data processing and review until appropriations resumed,” the agency said. “Subsequent PPI data releases will also be delayed.”

Overall, BLS reported that final demand increased by a seasonally adjusted 0.3% in September, following a 0.1% decline in August and 0.8% increase in July. On an unadjusted basis, PPI final demand increased 2.7% for the 12-month period that ended in September.

Broken down, the index for final demand on goods increased by 0.9%, the largest increase since a 0.9% jump in February 2024. Two-thirds of this increase can be blamed on energy prices leaping by 3.5%, while food prices increased 1.1%.

Among individual products, the cost for gasoline increased 11.8%, with increases also seen among meats, residential electric service, cars and ethanol. Prices for fresh and dry vegetables, however, dropped by 1.8%, and decreases were also seen in prices for metal ores and residual fuels.

BLS reported that the index for final demand services in September was unchanged, following a 0.3% decrease in August. Price increases of 0.8% were seen among transportation and warehousing services.

Among services, airline passenger service prices increased by 4%, and food wholesaling, chemicals and related products and furniture, among others, also saw prices rise. The margins for machinery and equipment wholesaling dropped 3.5% percent, while apparel, jewelry, footwear and portfolio management also saw price decreases.

Bitter rivals India and Pakistan will face off in Group A at next year’s 20-team competition.

Archrivals India and Pakistan will clash in a politically-charged Twenty20 World Cup match in Colombo on February 15, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said as it announced the draw on Tuesday.

The 20-team tournament will be played across eight venues – five in India and three in Sri Lanka – between February 7 and March 8, the ICC said in a statement.

Pakistan will play all their games in Sri Lanka because of their soured political relations with India.

The March 8 final is scheduled for the western Indian city of Ahmedabad but would be moved to Colombo if Pakistan reach it.

A military conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours in May overshadowed the subsequent Asia Cup 2025 in which India refused to accept the winners’ trophy from Asian Cricket Council chief Mohsin Naqvi, who is Pakistan’s interior minister.

The teams in the tournament have been divided into five groups of four, with the top two advancing to the Super Eight phase. The top four in that will qualify for the semifinals.

Defending champions India will begin their Group A campaign against the United States in Mumbai on February 7.

Sri Lanka and Australia are in Group B, which also includes Ireland, Zimbabwe and Oman.

England and West Indies, both twice winners, will face first-timers Italy and Asian sides Bangladesh and Nepal in Group C.

New Zealand, South Africa, Afghanistan, Canada and the United Arab Emirates make up Group D.

Nov. 25 (UPI) — Private companies’ payrolls decreased by an average of 13,500 jobs for each of the four weeks ending Nov. 8, data from payroll processing company ADP indicates Tuesday.

The data was released as part of ADP’s weekly National Employment Report Pulse based on a four-week moving average of employment across the country. ADP releases this report three times a month, on the weeks when it doesn’t publish its monthly report, the last of which was Nov. 5.

The Nov. 5 report showed that private companies added 42,000 jobs in October.

Last week’s NER Pulse report showed a 2,500 average weekly job loss. The jump to 13,500 jobs lost per week is reflective of the growing pace of layoffs.

U.S. companies cut more than 150,000 jobs in October, the highest number of layoffs for that month since 2003.

Economists have had to rely more on ADP’s weekly and monthly reports as the release of federal data continues to be affected by the record 43-day shutdown, which ended Nov. 12, CNBC reported.

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said its October jobs report won’t be released as planned. Instead, some of the data will come out in the full report for November. BLS officials said the report won’t include the unemployment rate for October because those figures allegedly couldn’t be collected during the shutdown.

Four more people have been arrested as part of the investigation into last month’s theft of precious jewellery at the Louvre Museum, the Paris prosecutor’s office says.

Two men, aged 38 and 39, and two women, aged 31 and 40, were arrested on Tuesday. They are all from the Paris region.

Among them is thought to be the last member of a four-man gang that allegedly carried out the daylight heist, according to French media. The other three suspected thieves have already been arrested and charged, officials say.

Police now have up to 96 hours to question them. No trace has so far been found of the stolen jewels – worth €88m (£76m; $102m) – which were taken on 19 October.

Four people have already charged over the heist – three men and a woman, who also live in the Paris region.

A 38-year-old woman was charged earlier this month with complicity in organised theft and criminal conspiracy with a view to committing a crime.

Separately, a man, aged 37, was charged with theft and criminal conspiracy.

These two suspects, who have not been named publicly, have denied any involvement.

Ms Beccuau previously told French news agency Franceinfo said the two were in a relationship and had children together, without giving any further details.

Meanwhile, two men were charged with theft and criminal conspiracy in October after officials said they had “partially recognised” their involvement in the heist.

The heist happened when the group of four men used a stolen vehicle-mounted mechanical lift to gain access to the Galerie d’Apollon (Gallery of Apollo) via a balcony close to the River Seine, Beccuau has previously said.

The men used a disc cutter to crack open display cases housing the jewellery.

The thieves were inside for four minutes and made their escape on two scooters waiting outside at 09:38, before switching to cars.

One of the stolen items – a crown – was dropped during the escape but eight other items of jewellery – including an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise – were taken.

Beccuau has said the heist was carried out by petty criminals rather than organised crime professionals.

Shortly after the theft, it was revealed by the Louvre’s director that the only camera monitoring the Galerie d’Apollon was pointing away from a balcony the thieves climbed over to break in.

The president of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars, has since admitted the museum had failed in its responsibilities, but denied that security had been overlooked – saying that from the time she took office in 2021 she had been warning constantly of the need for more investment.

Since the incident, security measures have been tightened around France’s cultural institutions.

The Louvre has transferred some of its most precious jewels to the Bank of France following the heist.

Nov. 25 (UPI) — The European Court of Justice ruled Thursday that European Union member nations must recognize the same-sex marriages of couples relocating from another EU state, even if same-sex unions are not permitted under their domestic law.

Judges in the court in Luxembourg, ruling in the case of two men lawfully married in Germany who were denied recognition of their union by authorities in Poland on their return to their home country, said it violated their fundamental right to a “normal family life,” the ECJ said in a news release.

The case was referred to the ECJ by Poland’s Supreme Court where the men were appealing against authorities’ refusal to transcribe their German marriage certificate into the civil register so that their marriage would be recognized, on grounds same-sex marriage is not legal in Poland.

Poland is a largely Catholic, socially conservative nation where LGBT rights are highly controversial import from permissive societies and LGBT-free zones are common.

The landmark decision said that while rules governing marriage fell under individual member states’ domestic law, they must comply with EU law in exercising that power.

Given EU citizens’ right to move and reside in any of the 27 member nations, couples who have built a family life in a host country “must have the certainty to be able to pursue that family life upon returning to their member state of origin,” the ruling said.

The judge said that where couples had opted to move, bans may cause serious inconvenience at administrative, professional and private levels, forcing spouses to “live as unmarried persons” in their own country.

“Such a refusal is contrary to EU law. It infringes not only the freedom to move and reside, but also the fundamental right to respect for private and family life,” the ruling states.

However, while the decision sets a precedent for recognition of same-sex marriage across the bloc it only mandates equal treatment of marriages conducted abroad, regardless of the sex of the couples.

It does not override national laws prohibiting same-sex marriage or require member states to provide for marriage between persons of the same sex.

The matter now returns to the Polish court, which must instruct authorities to officially recognize the couple’s marriage, but it can decide how that is done.

The case is an extension of a historic 2018 ECJ ruling that said married same-sex couples who were EU citizens had the legal right to live in any EU country, including nations that did not recognize same-sex unions.

Of the bloc’s 27 member states. at least two — Slovakia and Hungary — have legal or constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.

However, both allow same-sex couples a mechanism for their relationship to be legally recognized.

The Swedish Navy, the largest surface combatant of which is currently the Visby class corvette, is gearing up to place an order for four frigates. These would be the Swedish Navy’s largest warships since it gave up its last destroyers back in the early 1980s. The planned frigates reflect Sweden’s expanding naval ambitions since joining NATO and are also expected to stress anti-air warfare capabilities, something that’s of growing interest to the Swedish Navy.

Swedish Minister of Defense Pål Jonson said today that a final decision on the four-frigate buy is likely early next year. “We’re looking at what frigates there are that are available, that would also suit our quite ambitious timeline,” Jonson said. He added that the plan was to have two frigates in service “ideally by 2030” and another two by 2035.

The Defense Materiel Administration (FMV), Sweden’s defense procurement organization, has completed a market survey on available frigates, but has yet to make a final decision. Bearing in mind the ambitious timeline, an off-the-shelf design will be selected. The decision to acquire a warship significantly larger than the stealthy Visby class was made last year, at which point a foreign design became the only realistic option. The new vessels will be named the Luleå class.

Jonson was speaking today after a meeting in Stockholm with his French counterpart, Catherine Vautrin, who offered to supply Sweden with a first fully equipped frigate in 2030. This would be a version of the Naval Group’s new Frégate de Défense et d’Intervention (FDI), or defense and intervention frigate, an unorthodox design with an inverted bow, which you can read more about here.

Other items discussed by Jonson and Vautrin included French interest in the Saab GlobalEye airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, as well as aid to Ukraine.

The FDI was first formally offered to Sweden last month, and, if selected, it would be built in partnership with the Swedish defense industry, in particular, Saab.

In terms of the role of the new Swedish frigate, Jonson confirmed today that they will have a significant anti-air warfare function, reflecting the nation’s plan to join NATO’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) program. The alliance’s investment in this network has been stepped up in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with NATO deploying additional IAMD capabilities to NATO’s eastern flank.

The Swedish Navy is already making efforts to expand its anti-air warfare capabilities with an update to its five Visby class corvettes, which adds the Sea Ceptor, also known as the Common Anti-air Modular Missile (CAMM) — a surface-to-air missile that can engage a wide variety of threats.

The anti-air warfare focus would appear to put the FDI in a strong position for the Swedish requirement. As we have described in the past, the primary anti-air weapon of the French warship is the Aster surface-to-air missile, 16 of which are carried in a pair of eight-cell launchers — later vessels will be able to carry 32 by doubling the number of launchers.

The combat-proven Aster is available in two main versions. The smaller Aster 15 has a range of around 18 miles, while the larger Aster 30 is able to engage targets at more than 75 miles. Recent improvements to the Aster 30 include enhancing its capabilities against anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), a relatively new type of threat.

The FDI uses a Thales Sea Fire radar to support its air defense mission out to a significant range.

Comparing the Visby class and the FDI, the Swedish design has a displacement of 705 tons and a length of 238 feet 6 inches, while the French warship has a displacement of 4,390 tons and is 400 feet 3 inches long.

In the past, another option for the future Luleå class was expected to be a development of the British Type 31 frigate design, proposed by a partnership of Saab and Babcock. According to an agreement between the two companies, Saab would develop the basic design for the frigate, while Babcock would provide support with engineering, structural design, and auxiliary systems. However, the current status of this collaboration is unclear.

Another likely contender for the Swedish requirement is Spain’s Navantia. This manufacturer offers a variety of frigates that cover a range from just over 2,200 tons displacement to ships above 6,000 tons. Designs include the Spanish Navy’s recently launched F110 class frigate, also known as the Bonifaz class. As you can read about here, this warship is notable for its combination of high-end anti-submarine warfare functions paired with anti-air warfare abilities and its distinctive tall mast, mounting elements of a sophisticated radar system.

The last time that the Swedish Navy operated a surface combatant approaching this kind of size was back in the early 1980s. The Östergötland was the Swedish Navy’s last class of destroyers, originally built in the late 1950s. These had a fully loaded displacement of 2,600 tons and were 367 feet 5 inches long, somewhat smaller than the preceding Halland class, which had a fully loaded displacement of 3,291 tons and a length of 398 feet 11 inches. The last examples of these two classes of destroyers were decommissioned in 1982.

As part of the French drive to export the FDI frigate to Sweden, the first-of-class Amiral Ronarc’h will visit the Swedish port of Gothenburg early next year. France has already secured sales of the warship to Greece, which is buying four, on top of the five planned for the French Navy.

For the Swedish Navy, the primary area of operation has been the Baltic theater, an area of resurgent strategic relevance, as the host to regular and sometimes hostile Russian military activity, maritime, airborne, and also increasingly in the ‘gray zone’ or hybrid warfare.

A new frigate with enhanced anti-air warfare capabilities will be better able to protect itself, other vessels, and even shore areas or islands, against threats from the air. The overwhelming numbers of crewed aircraft, drones, and missiles that Russia could potentially put up in a conflict involving Sweden have been a significant concern even before the country joined NATO.

Already, much of the Swedish Air Force’s mode of operation is based on being best prepared to leverage smaller numbers to deal with a potential large-scale Russian aerial attack. As a result, the Swedish Air Force has long sought to develop innovative technologies and tactics that would allow it, as a much smaller air arm, to be able to put up significant resistance.

The four new frigates should further that ambition, but would also allow operations far outside the Baltic, including into the wider North Atlantic region, reflecting Sweden’s developing military ambitions as it becomes a more established NATO member.

Once it gets its new frigates, the Swedish Armed Forces will be better prepared to face any kind of contingency in the Baltic region or elsewhere, and it will be interesting to see whether they opt for the FDI frigate or a rival design.

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