Donald Trump has used his first TV interview as president to say he believes torture “absolutely” works and that the US should “fight fire with fire.”

Speaking to ABC News, Trump said he would defer to the defence secretary, James Mattis, and CIA director, Mike Pompeo, to determine what can and cannot be done legally to combat the spread of terrorism.

But asked about the efficacy of tactics such as waterboarding, Trump said: “absolutely I feel it works.”

The Obama administration wants to restore financial aid to Mexico that it cut last year to protest the country’s human rights record, even though abuses have continued, officials said Thursday.

Last year, the State Department cut about $5 million in aid to Mexico, part of a broader package allocated under the so-called Merida Initiative that was generally aimed at fighting a drug war.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his efforts to end a 52-year-old war with Marxist guerrillas, a surprise choice and a show of support days after voters rejected a peace deal he signed with the rebels.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said Santos had brought one of the longest civil wars in modern history significantly closer to a peaceful solution, but there was still a danger the peace process could collapse.

Russia was probably responsible for the deadly bombing of a United Nations humanitarian aid convoy in Syria, American officials said Tuesday, further shredding what remained of a severely weakened agreement between the United States and Russia aimed at halting the war.

Aghast at the attack on Monday night, United Nations officials on Tuesday suspended all aid convoys in Syria, describing the bombing as a possible war crime and a cowardly act.

A Florida jury on Monday found a former Chilean army officer liable for the 1973 torture and murder of the folk singer and political activist Victor Jara, awarding $28m in damages to his widow and daughters in one of the biggest and most significant legal human rights victories against a foreign war criminal in a US courtroom.

A Chilean army officer accused of murdering the popular folk singer and political activist Víctor Jara in the first days of Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 CIA-backed coup d’etat goes on trial in a Florida courtroom on Monday, a landmark moment in his British widow’s four-decades-long fight for justice.

President Barack Obama said the United States was too slow to condemn human rights atrocities during Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship as he honored victims of the "Dirty War" on Thursday, but he stopped short of apologizing for Washington's early support for the military junta.

United States immigration authorities have deported a Filipino who admitted doing surveillance for a law enforcement task force in the Philippines linked to the disappearance of several opposition politicians.