POLAND: Opponents of abortion marched in Warsaw today to protest against steps by the new government to liberalise the predominantly Catholic nation’s strict laws and allow termination of pregnancy until the 12th week.

Poland’s Catholic church called for Sunday to be a day of prayer “in defence of conceived life” and has supported the march, organised by an anti-abortion movement.

Last week, Poland’s parliament voted to approve further detailed work on four proposals to lift the near-ban on abortions.

CHINA: Two people have been detained following the capsizing of a tourist boat on a river in the north-east that led to the drownings of 12 visitors.

The accident occurred on Saturday outside the city of Qinhuangdao near the coast of Hebei province.

A total of 31 people were thrown into the water. The boat was made by local villagers and was unequipped with life jackets or other safety equipment.

The boat’s owner and operator were held while an investigation into the accident was under way.

BRAZIL: A small boat full of decomposing corpses was spotted by fishermen off the north-eastern coast on Saturday.

The attorney general’s office said it has dispatched a forensics team to the area to determine where the bodies and the boat came from.

In 2021, at least seven boats full of corpses washed up in Brazil and the eastern Caribbean.

Previous investigations determined that some of these boats carried the corpses of Africans who were trying to make it to the Canary Islands.

PAKISTAN: Police searched for gunmen who killed nine people after abducting them from a bus on a highway in the country’s south-west. The same attackers earlier killed two people and wounded six in another car they forced to stop.

The abductions took place on Friday in Baluchistan province, which has long been the scene of an insurgency by separatists fighting for independence.

The outlawed Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack.