At least six Zimbabwe activists were “abducted” and some of them beaten up as a heavy police presence in Harare prevented planned protests yesterday against President Robert Mugabe’s government.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Khaleda Zia yesterday unveiled a 13-point proposal for formation of a new stronger and neutral election commission (EC) to hold credible elections.

Authorities in Mozambique have started investigations into whether locals were illegally taking petrol from a tanker that exploded killing at least 60 people and injuring more than 100.

Sri Lanka’s former ambassador to Washington was arrested yesterday accused of misappropriating more than $350,000, the latest member of strongman ex-president Mahinda Rajapakse’s family to be investigated for corruption in office.

By eulogising the services of the late Abdur Rehman Peshawari in the Turkish War of Independence and the World War I, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his speech to the joint session of parliament in Islamabad yesterday reminded the Pakistanis of a long-forgotten war hero.

China’s Shenzhou-11 spacecraft returned to earth yesterday, bringing home two astronauts from the rising power’s longest-ever orbital mission, in a milestone for its vaulting ambitions.

A 21-year-old man set himself on fire in a Melbourne bank yesterday, causing an explosion that left himself and five others in a critical condition, police said.

A convoy of 27 military trucks reached the stricken New Zealand town of Kaikoura yesterday, five days after the seaside community was completely cut off by huge landslides caused by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed two people.

Vietnam is extending its runway on an island in the South China Sea also claimed by Beijing, according to fresh images likely to irk the regional superpower.

Two leaders of Malaysian voting rights group The Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih 2.0) have been arrested by police and will be remanded today, said Eric Paulsen, one of the duo’s lawyers.

British Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday assured her German counterpart that preparations for Britain’s exit from the European Union were on track, and that the legal process of leaving would be triggered by the end of March next year.

Few leaders began their presidency with such promise and ended in such ignominy as the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos.