Five friends from Argentina killed in New York terror attack

Heavily armed police guard as revellers march during the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade hours after a truck attack killed several people on a busy city bike path. Photo / AP

Argentina: Five friends from Argentina are among those killed in the New York terror attack, the country's foreign ministry says. The compatriots, from the city of Rosario in central Argentina, were celebrating the 30th anniversary of their graduation. A statement from the ministry says it passed on its deepest condolences following the deaths of Hernan Diego Mendoza, Diego Enrique Angelini, Alejandro Damian Pagnucco, Ariel Erlij and Hernan Ferruchi. A sixth Argentinian man with the group named as Martin Ludovico Marro is being treated at the Presbyterian hospital in Manhattan, the ministry added.

Belgium: A Belgian woman was also killed when a driver ploughed into pedestrians and cyclists in New York. Three more Belgians were also injured - a mother, father and child from the same family and are undergoing surgery, Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders told news agency Belga.

Australia: Visitors to Uluru may be banned from climbing the sacred rock by traditional owners who are meeting at Uluru. The Uluru-Kata Tjuta management board are discussing permanently closing the climbing route on Uluru as less people opt to make the trek. Figures from Parks Australia indicate only 16 per cent of visitors made the climb between 2011 and 2015, down from about 74 per cent in the 1990s. The closure is possible under the terms of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Management Plan 2010-2020, which said it can be closed if the proportion of climbers falls below 20 per cent. Uluru currently has around 300,000 visitors each year. The traditional landowners, the Anangu, refuse to climb Uluru considering it sacred.

United States: A man who barged into his child's Southern California elementary school and allegedly held a 70-year-old teacher hostage for nearly seven hours was shot by police who forced their way into a classroom and rescued her. A SWAT team entered the room at Castle View Elementary School, east of Los Angeles, Officer Ryan Railsback said. Negotiators had been talking to the man but hadn't heard from the woman. The decision to hurl distracting flash-bang grenades and storm the classroom was made because "the fear for her safety was increasing". The man was seen being wheeled away on a gurney into an ambulance. There was no immediate word on his condition. The teacher was sent to a hospital for examination but didn't appear to be injured, Railsback said.

Asia: The White House says US President Donald Trump will not visit the Demilitarised Zone during his upcoming trip to Asia - a break from many previous administrations. There's not enough time in the President's schedule to accommodate a visit to the heavily fortified border zone that has separated the North and South Korea for 64 years, a senior Administration official said. Every president but one since Ronald Reagan has visited the DMZ. The White House has played down the notion that the hesitance to visit the DMZ stemmed from security concerns, although experts on the region say a visit could have further inflamed tensions. Trump will visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Japan: A Japanese man arrested after the discovery of nine dismembered bodies in his apartment south of Tokyo has admitted to the murders, saying they began in late August when he moved into the apartment, local news reports said. Takahiro Shiraishi, 27, has reportedly admitted to police that he had killed nine people, apparently eight women and one man, since August 22, after making contact on Twitter and luring them to his home in Zama, Kanagawa prefecture, with offers to help them die. The arrested man admitted that the theft of money was one of the reasons behind the murders.

Papua New Guinea: The 606 men refusing to leave an Australian asylum-seekers detention centre on Papua New Guinea were without power and many of their toilets after a nervous first night following the facility's closure. The centre inside a Manus Island navy base was declared closed Tuesday afternoon following the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court's ruling last year the Australia's detention of asylum seekers there was illegal and unconstitutional. But the men who've stayed at the centre on Lombrun Navy Base fear for their safety in the alternative shelters available because of threats from locals. The Sydney-based Refugee Action Coalition said the removal of electricity generators left the centre without power, including toilets operating on electrical pumps. They still have tap water, though it isn't drinkable.

- agencies