PAKISTAN: Security forces fatally shot three insurgents involved in the recent killing of a senior government administrator in the restive south-west, the military said today.

It said the dead men were members of the Baloch Liberation Army, which claimed responsibility for the attack on Baloch ahead of Pakistan’s Independence Day. The men were also involved in previous attacks, it added.

KENYA: A suspect who police said had confessed to killing 42 women after being detained over the discovery of dismembered bodies in the capital Nairobi has escaped from custody, officials said today.

Directorate of Criminal Investigations head Mohamed Amin said that Collins Jumaisi Khalusha had escaped along with 12 other inmates of Eritrean nationality, who had been arrested for being in the country illegally.

GREECE: Authorities on the southern island of Crete detained 76 migrants early today after they arrived on three boats as smugglers seek new routes in the region to evade coastguard patrols.

The migrants, from Syria, Egypt, Sudan, and Bangladesh, included six children and arrived before dawn on the tiny island of Gavdos, near Crete’s southern coast, local officials said.

MALAWI: The government has received an insurance payout of $11.2 million (£8.6m) for a crippling El Nino-linked drought that led to a state of disaster being declared earlier this year.

The payout was given to Malawi this month, the African Development Bank said on Monday. The funds will support food aid for around 235,000 households in some of Malawi's hardest-hit regions. President Lazarus Chakwera said the payout was “a lifeline for our vulnerable populations.”