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Dhaka (AFP) – At least 16 people, mostly students, were killed Monday when a training aircraft of the Bangladesh Air Force crashed into a school campus in the capital Dhaka, the government said.

More than 100 people were also injured in the accident, with at least 83 undergoing treatment in several hospitals, the office of interim leader Muhammad Yunus said.

The Chinese-made F-7 BJI aircraft took off at 1:06 pm (0706 GMT) and crashed soon after at the Milestone School and College campus.

An AFP photographer at the scene saw fire and rescue officials taking away the injured students on stretchers.

Yunus expressed "deep grief and sorrow" over the incident in a post on X.

"The loss suffered by the Air Force, the students, parents, teachers, and staff of Milestone School and College, as well as others affected by this accident, is irreparable," he said.

"This is a moment of profound pain for the nation."

Sweida (Syria) (AFP) – Syrian authorities on Monday evacuated Bedouin families from the Druze-majority city of Sweida, after a ceasefire in the southern province halted bloody clashes between the communities, an AFP correspondent and official media said.

An AFP correspondent outside the devastated provincial capital saw a convoy including buses enter Sweida and then exit again carrying civilians.

The evacuees, including women and children, were headed for reception centres in neighbouring Daraa province and to the capital Damascus, in coordination with the Syrian Red Crescent.

State news agency SANA said 1,500 people from Bedouin tribes were to be evacuated.

The ceasefire announced Saturday put an end to the sectarian violence that has left more than 1,100 dead in a week, according to a monitor.

Clashes began between Druze and Bedouin tribes, who have had tense relations for decades, and were complicated by the intervention of Sunni Arab tribes who converged on Sweida in support of the Bedoiun.

Witnesses, Druze factions and a monitor have accused government forces of siding with the Bedouin and committing abuses including summary executions when they entered Sweida last week.

"We reached a formula that allows us to defuse the crisis by evacuating the families of our compatriots from the Bedouin and the tribes who are currently in Sweida city," the province's internal security chief Ahmad Dalati told state television.

The ceasefire was announced Saturday but effectively only began on Sunday, after Bedouin and tribal fighters withdrew from part of Sweida city and Druze groups retook control.

The announcement came hours after the United States said it had negotiated a ceasefire between Syria's government and Israel, which had bombed government forces in both Sweida and Damascus earlier in the week.

Israel, which has its own Druze community, has said it was acting in defence of the group, as well as to enforce its demands for the total demilitarisation of Syria's south.

The deal allowed the deployment of government security forces in Sweida province but not its main city.

On Sunday, a first humanitarian aid convoy entered the city which has seen power and water cuts and shortages of fuel, food and medical supplies.

Colombo (AFP) – Sri Lanka's Catholic Church on Monday demanded the criminal prosecution of the intelligence chief who was sacked for failing to prevent the 2019 Easter bombings that killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners.

Church spokesman Cyril Gamini Fernando said they welcomed the dismissal days ago of Nilantha Jayawardena, who was head of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) when jihadist suicide bombers attacked three churches and three hotels.

"This (sacking) is for the negligence part of it, but we want the authorities to investigate Jayawardena's role in the attack itself," Fernando told reporters in Colombo. "We want a criminal prosecution."

He said evidence presented before several courts and commissions of inquiry indicated that the SIS, under Jayawardena, had attempted to cover up the actions of the jihadists in the lead-up to the April 21 attacks.

"Six years on, we are still looking for answers. We want to know the truth about who was behind the attack," he said.

Jayawardena, 52, was dismissed Saturday from the police department, where he was the second most senior officer in charge of administration and on track to become the next inspector-general.

Court proceedings have revealed that both military and police intelligence units were closely linked to the home-grown jihadists, and some had even been on the payroll of the intelligence services.

The current ruling party, led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake, had while in opposition accused Gotabaya Rajapaksa of orchestrating the attacks to win the 2019 presidential election.

The once powerful Rajapaksa family has denied the allegations.

The attacks occurred despite a warning from an intelligence agency in neighbouring India, which alerted Jayawardena 17 days before the devastating bombings.

He was found guilty of ignoring a series of alerts. More than 500 people were also wounded in the bombings, Sri Lanka's worst jihadist attack on civilians.

Jayawardena was removed from his position as SIS chief in December 2019 but was later promoted to deputy head of the police force, overseeing administration.

However, he was placed on compulsory leave a year ago, pending the disciplinary inquiry, following repeated judicial orders to take action against him.

Washington (AFP) – Alaska Airlines has requested a ground stop for all its mainline aircraft according to an advisory notice by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), with the company citing an "IT outage."

The airline told AFP that on Sunday it "experienced an IT outage that's impacting our operations" and that it "requested a temporary, system-wide ground stop for Alaska and Horizon Air flights until the issue is resolved."

The FAA status page showed all destinations being impacted by the ground stop of Alaska's mainline aircraft.

It did not immediately respond to AFP's requests for comment.

Alaska Airlines apologized for the disruption, urging travelers to check their flight status before heading to the airport.

"We apologize to our guests for this inconvenience," it said in a statement.

"There will be residual impacts to our operation throughout the evening."

The statement, also posted on X, drew a backlash from what appeared to be frustrated passengers.

"This is brutal. We've been sitting at the airport for two hours," wrote an X user named Caleb Heimlich in reply.

Another user, BetterDays, commented: "This started at 8 pm & you're just posting this now?! Your service has gone way down over the last 5 years."

The incident comes more than a year after a door plug section of a newly delivered Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight between Portland, Oregon and Ontario, California in January last year.

The 171 passengers and six crew members survived the rapid decompression, but the incident focused minds at the FAA, which grounded many Boeing 737-9 aircraft operated by US airlines. 

Last month, US investigators said Boeing's failure to provide adequate training to manufacturing staff was a driving factor in the near-catastrophic Alaska Airlines mid-flight blowout.

Alaska Air Group has a fleet of 325 aircraft, comprising 238 Boeing 737 planes and 87 Embraer 175 aircraft, according to its website.

Cabo Rojo (Puerto Rico) (AFP) – Gloria Cuevas thought she would live forever in her pink, century-old house on Puerto Rico's west coast -- but then her landlord decided to transform the home into an Airbnb.

Cuevas left her home -- now purple and split in two -- and her beloved city for another further south, forced out by the rising cost of living and an explosion of short-term rentals on the US Caribbean island territory.

Puerto Rico -- long a draw for sun-worshipping tourists -- is also a hotspot for foreign investment and offers tax incentives to attract outsiders.

"At first, I couldn't come back here," Cuevas, 68, told AFP, gazing at the home she once made her own. "It made me feel sad and angry at the same time."

Cuevas's experience is becoming an all too familiar tale across the island, where signs promote mansions for sale, and the Airbnb logo is plastered on homes where locals once lived.

Intensifying Puerto Rico's gentrification are laws that encourage primarily wealthy mainland Americans to move there in exchange for preferential tax treatment.

The program originally enacted in 2012 was meant to spur economic growth and attract investment on the island, an unincorporated territory under US control since 1898.

Those relocating must acquire residency and buy property to keep the significant incentives -- but many Puerto Ricans as well as some US lawmakers say this is driving up housing prices and encouraging tax evasion.

"Colonialism kills us, it suffocates us," Cuevas said. "It's a global theme. It's a class war."

Ricki Rebeiro, 30, moved to San Juan more than a year ago, bringing his packaging and marketing business that services cannabis companies with him.

He told AFP that basing his work in Puerto Rico saves his company millions of dollars annually, and that he pays zero personal income tax -- what amounts to the equivalent of "a whole second income" that he says he tries to reinvest locally.

"I believe that the locals are probably upset that they're not reaping the same benefits of somebody like me," said the entrepreneur, whose family is based in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma.

The system is "unfair," Rebeiro said, "but I also don't believe that I should be the one to blame for that. I didn't structure the program."

Puerto Ricans in recent years have slammed their government for what they say is a hyperfocus on outsiders at the expense of locals, as the rich -- including people like the famous content creator-turned-boxer Jake Paul -- move in.

In Cabo Rojo, a seaside city about an hour's drive south of Rincon on the island's western coast, some residents are taking the matter into their own hands.

During a recent canvassing effort, a group of activists urged their neighbors to protest a massive development project called Esencia, which would transform more than 2,000 acres (810 hectares) of recreational land and more than three miles of beaches into a $2 billion luxury resort and residential development.

Dafne Javier's family goes back generations in this area -- her great-grandfather was the last mayor in the municipality under Spanish occupation, and the first under US rule.

The 77-year-old said the Esencia project would "totally change the landscape," creating a gated town within a town.

Protesters say it would destroy the natural habitat of some endangered species, while exacerbating problems with potable water, electricity supply and trash pick-up.

Project investors have called Puerto Rico "one of the most promising growth markets in the world" and vowed Esencia would create "thousands of jobs."

But those jobs will be minimum wage, Javier predicted, and the wealthy newcomers "won't mix with us."

Christopher Powers is married to a Puerto Rican with whom he has children, and has lived in Cabo Rojo for 20 years.

"They have no idea what they're destroying, and if they do have an idea what they're destroying, then they should be ashamed," he told AFP of the developers.

"Not only is it ecologically destructive, not only will it be an economic disaster for those of us who live here, but it's also against the sort of spirit or values of the Caborojinos."

Cuevas is hopeful her story and others like it will crystallize for her fellow Puerto Ricans what they stand to lose.

"We have to keep fighting. We have to educate our youth. Have you heard of Bad Bunny?" she said, referring to the Puerto Rican global superstar whose music and current residency in San Juan has amplified discussion of gentrification and cultural dilution, on the island and beyond.

"This is ours," Cuevas said. "We're not going to leave."

For the first time in Madagascar, a court has ruled that surgical castration be carried out on a sex offender, who raped and murdered a six-year-old girl.

The 24-year-old man has been sentenced to surgical castration and life imprisonment with hard labour – the first time the law will be applied since it was voted through in parliament more than a year ago.

"Today's decision is a strong and significant response from the justice system, intended also to serve as a warning to anyone with similar malicious intentions," said Didier Razafindralambo, attorney general at the Court of Appeal.

According to Madagascar’s justice ministry, 133 cases of the rape of a minor were reported in January 2024 alone – more than four per day.

The offender in this case took the six-year-old girl to his home in March 2024, where he beat, raped and strangled her and burnt her with cigarette butts.

Surgical castration is a permanent procedure involving the removal of the testicles, or ovaries, to stop the production of sex hormones.

It is a rare form of punishment, only used in Germany, the Czech Republic, the state of Louisiana in the United States and that of Kaduna in Nigeria – and now Madagascar.

Chemical castration involves the use of drugs to stop the production of sex hormones. The punishment has been introduced in several US states, and several countries.

Madagascar's Justice Minister Landy Mbolatiana Randriamanantenasoa said that the introduction of the law enabling surgical castration was necessary due to increasing cases of child rape.

Surgical castration will be the default punishment for those found guilty of raping a child under the age of 10, according to the new law. Cases of rape against children between the ages of 10 and 13 will be punished by either surgical or chemical castration. The rape of minors between the age of 14 and 17 will be punished by chemical castration.

The country's Catholic bishops have condemned the law, saying it goes against ethics and morality. They described castration as an act of "torture", contrary to human rights and the principles of the Church.

"The human body, as the work of God, is sacred," they said in a statement. "So nothing and no one has authority over it, not even the law."

The law has also drawn criticism from several rights groups. At the time of the law's proposal, Amnesty International called castration a "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" and said it was "inconsistent with Malagasy constitutional provisions against torture and other ill-treatment, as well as regional and international human rights standards".

However, Jessica Lolonirina Nivoseheno of Women Break the Silence – a movement against rape culture in Madagascar – told RFI that the punishment will act as a deterrent.

"Rape culture is so present in Madagascar. Sexual violence is normalised. The punishment is a way of telling potential offenders that there are consequences for their crime."

The Hague (AFP) – The top United Nations court will on Wednesday hand down a landmark global legal blueprint for tackling climate change that also sets out top polluters' responsibilities towards the countries suffering most.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has been tasked with crafting a so-called advisory opinion on countries' obligations to prevent climate change and the consequences for polluters whose emissions have harmed the planet.

Experts say this is the most significant in a string of recent rulings on climate change in international law, with major potential repercussions for states and firms around the world.

Climate-vulnerable countries and campaign groups hope it will have far-reaching legal consequences in the fight against climate change, unifying existing law, shaping national and international legislation, and impacting current court cases.

"It will be the compass the world needs to course correct," said Vishal Prasad, director of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change.

"It will give new strength to climate litigation, inspire more ambitious national policies and guide states toward decisions that uphold their legal duties to protect both people and planet," said Prasad.

But some critics argue the ruling will be toothless, as ICJ advisory opinions are not binding and major polluters can choose simply to ignore it.

London (AFP) – Anti-migrant protests degenerated again late Sunday outside a London hotel housing asylum seekers, as rioters threw bottles and smoke bombs at the police.

Police said they had arrested five people for "violent disorder" at the rally outside the Bell Hotel in the north-east London district of Epping.

"Disappointingly we have seen yet another protest, which had begun peacefully, escalate into mindless thuggery with individuals again hurting one of our officers and damaging a police vehicle," Chief Superintendent Simon Anslow said in a statement.

Police vans guarded the entrance to the hotel as several hundred people rallied outside, according to the British news agency PA.

The protestors shouted "save our children" and "send them home", while banners called for the expulsion of "foreign criminals".

Tensions have been simmering for days after a 38-year-old asylum seeker was charged with sexual assault. He allegedly tried to kiss a 14-year-old girl, which he denied when brought to court on Thursday.

On Thursday evening, eight police officers were wounded in clashes.

Anti-immigration riots shook the UK last summer after three girls were stabbed to death by a teenager in the north-western town of Southport, even though the suspect turned out to be British-born.

Rioters had attacked hotels housing asylum seekers in several towns, including an attempt to set fire to an establishment in Rotherham, in north-east England.

Berlin (AFP) – Iran confirmed fresh talks with European powers to be held on Friday in Istanbul, the country's state media reported, the first since the United States attacked Iranian nuclear facilities a month ago.

Iranian diplomats will meet counterparts from Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3, after the trio warned that sanctions could be reimposed on Tehran if it does return to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme.

Western nations and Israel have long accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran has consistently denied.

"In response to the request of European countries, Iran has agreed to hold a new round of talks," said foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghai, as quoted by state TV on Monday.

The subject of the talks will be Iran's nuclear programme, it added.

A German diplomatic source had told AFP on Sunday the E3 were in contact with Tehran and said "Iran must never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon".

"That is why Germany, France and the United Kingdom are continuing to work intensively in the E3 format to find a sustainable and verifiable diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear programme," the source said.

Also Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a surprise meeting in the Kremlin with Ali Larijani, top adviser to Iran's supreme leader on nuclear issues.

Larijani "conveyed assessments of the escalating situation in the Middle East and around the Iranian nuclear programme", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the unannounced meeting.

Putin had expressed Russia's "well-known positions on how to stabilise the situation in the region and on the political settlement of the Iranian nuclear programme", he added.

Moscow has a cordial relationship with Iran's clerical leadership and provides crucial backing for Tehran but did not swing forcefully behind its partner even after the United States joined Israel's bombing campaign.

European countries have in recent days threatened to trigger the deal's "snapback" mechanism, which allows the reimposition of sanctions in the event of non-compliance by Iran.

After a call with his European counterparts on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the Western allies had "absolutely no moral (or) legal grounds" for reactivating the snapback sanctions.

He elaborated in a post to social media Sunday.

"Through their actions and statements, including providing political and material support to the recent unprovoked and illegal military aggression of the Israeli regime and the US... the E3 have relinquished their role as 'Participants' in the JCPOA," said Araghchi.

That made any attempt to reinstate the terminated UN Security Council resolutions "null and void", he added.

"Iran has shown that it is capable of defeating any delusional 'dirty work' but has always been prepared to reciprocate meaningful diplomacy in good faith," Araghchi wrote.

However, the German source said Sunday that "if no solution is reached over the summer, snapback remains an option for the E3".

Ali Velayati, an adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said last week there would be no new nuclear talks with the United States if they were conditioned on Tehran abandoning its uranium enrichment activities.

Qaffīn (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – A guest house in the shape of a plane would stand out anywhere in the world, but in the occupied West Bank devoid of airports, Minwer Harsha's creation helps aviation dreams take flight.

"So many kids want to come," said 27-year-old Harsha, who built the guest house in the hills of the northern West Bank, within view of the separation barrier between Israel and the Palestinian territory.

"And that's the goal: since we don't have planes or airports, people come here instead," he told AFP.

Harsha said he designed the concrete plane himself, with a master bedroom in the cockpit and a children's bedroom in the tail.

The price tag, between 1,000 and 2,000 shekels (about $300-$600) per night, is out of reach for most Palestinians, particularly as unemployment soars due to the war in Gaza.

He has nonetheless been pleased with the reactions to his chalet, having initially faced scepticism.

"I wanted to bring something unique, something new to the area and to Palestine," Harsha said of the unit, which opened a month ago.

Since its launch, his red and white concrete plane has become a local landmark, featuring in local media and on social networks.

Harsha said he originally wanted to place a Palestinian flag on his chalet and call it the "Palestinian Queen", but avoided such signs out of caution.

The guest house is located in the West Bank's Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the territory and is under full Israeli control.

"I just made it look like a plane. I avoided politics entirely because of the hardships our people are going through," he said.

"We're a people who are constantly losing things -- our land, our rights, our lives."

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and frequently demolishes homes it says are built without permission in the mostly rural Area C.

Though no airport currently services the Palestinian territories, both the West Bank and Gaza once had their own terminals, in east Jerusalem and the southern Gaza city of Rafah, respectively.

Both were closed during the Second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s, and what remains of east Jerusalem's airport is now isolated from the rest of the West Bank by Israel's separation barrier.

Despite difficulties and threats of demolition, Harsha believes that Palestinians can find freedom and fulfilment in projects like his.

"I encourage everyone who has land to work on it and invest in it -- with creativity and ambition," he said, flanked by his two brothers who helped him build the unit.

Harsha himself has more plans for his land.

"After this aeroplane, we'll build a ship next year," he said.

"It will be something unique and beautiful," he said, pointing out that while many West Bank Palestinians have seen planes flying overhead, a large number of people from the landlocked territory have never seen a real ship at all.

Maiquetía (Venezuela) (AFP) – Venezuela on Friday received seven children who had been left behind in the United States after their parents were deported by the Donald Trump administration.

Seven boys and girls have been "rescued from the kidnapping to which they were being subjected," Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said at Maiquetia International Airport that serves Caracas.

Cabello and First Lady Cilia Flores received the flight from Houston that also brought back 244 Venezuelans.

Hundreds of people protested in Caracas last week demanding the return of at least 30 children the government says remained in the United States after their Venezuelan parents were expelled.

Last month, parliamentary president Jorge Rodriguez said the children were "separated from their mothers, their fathers, their family, their grandparents" and "taken to institutions where they don't belong."

Cabello said Friday the government was working hard "to bring the children back."

He did not say when the seven were separated from their parents.

Official figures show that since February, more than 8,200 people, including many children, have been repatriated to Venezuela from the United States and Mexico.

Berlin (AFP) – Germany said Friday it had deported 81 Afghan men convicted of crimes to their Taliban-controlled homeland, as Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government looks to signal a hard line on immigration.

Europe's top economy was forging ahead with a "policy change", said Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, who was also hosting several European counterparts for a migration meeting.

"Deportations to Afghanistan must continue to be carried out safely in the future. There is no right of residence for serious criminals in our country," he said.

The interior ministry said the plane took off Friday morning bound for Afghanistan, adding that all the deportees were under expulsion orders and were convicted by the criminal justice system.

Germany had stopped deportations to Afghanistan and closed its embassy in Kabul following the Taliban's return to power in 2021.

But expulsions resumed last year, when the previous government of Social Democrat (SPD) chancellor Olaf Scholz expelled a group of 28 Afghan convicts.

Berlin has had only indirect contact with the Taliban authorities through third parties, with Friday's operation executed with the help of Qatar, said the interior ministry.

Following the announcement, the United Nations said no one should be sent back to Afghanistan, whatever their status.

The UN human rights commissioner called for an "immediate halt to the forcible return of all Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers, particularly those at risk of persecution, arbitrary detention or torture upon their return", spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.

Amnesty International directly criticised the deportations, saying the situation in Afghanistan was "catastrophic" and that "extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and torture are commonplace".

Merz defended the expulsions at a press conference, saying he was "grateful" to be able to deliver on a promise he had made when entering government.

None of those deported "had a residence status anymore. All asylum applications were legally rejected without further legal recourse," he said. "This is why this deportation and this flight were possible."

The deportations were among a number of "corrections" made to immigration policy by his government, including tightening border controls and limiting family reunification rights for some refugees.

Merz however said policing Germany's borders was only a "temporary" fix and a durable solution was needed at the European level.

To that end, Dobrindt was meeting his Austrian, Danish, Czech, French and Polish counterparts, as well as European Commissioner for Home Affairs Magnus Brunner, in southern Germany.

The aim of the meeting was to "strengthen European migration policy", Dobrindt told the Augsburger Allgemeine daily.

Migration has become a central issue on the German political agenda in tandem with the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

The AfD scored a historic election result of over 20 percent in February -- its highest-ever score at the national level -- leaving the party nipping on the heels of Merz's conservative CDU/CSU bloc.

The controversy over immigration has been fuelled by a series of deadly attacks where the suspects were asylum seekers -- including several from Afghanistan.

Germany's new government, a coalition between the CDU/CSU and SPD, has promised to expel more foreign criminals alongside a crackdown on irregular migration.

As well as carrying out deportations to Afghanistan, Dobrindt has said he was in contact with authorities to enable deportations to Syria, which have been suspended since 2012.