SRI LANKA: A passenger bus skidded off a cliff in Sri Lanka’s tea-growing hill country today, killing 21 people and injuring 35 others, a police spokesman said.

The accident occurred in the early hours of Sunday near the town of Kotmale, about 86 miles east of the capital Colombo, in a mountainous area of central Sri Lanka, police said.

IRAN: A fourth round of negotiations with the US began today over Tehran’s nuclear programme, officials said. 

The talks, again happening in the sultanate of Oman, will likely see Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi mediating. 

They seek to limit Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of some of the crushing economic sanctions the US has imposed on the Islamic Republic.

PANAMA: Former president Ricardo Martinelli has left the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama City where he sought refuge more than a year ago after the courts upheld a money laundering sentence against him. He has headed to Colombia and received political asylum, the government said late on Saturday.

Panama’s Foreign Ministry said Colombian President Gustavo Petro sent Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino a formal note saying that he had granted Mr Martinelli asylum and that Panama had granted the former president safe passage to Colombia.

UNITED STATES: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on Saturday denied trespassing at the Delaney Hall detention centre in New Jersey during a confrontation that led to his arrest while the Democrat was visiting with three members of Congress.

Mayor Baraka, who has been protesting against the centre’s opening this week, was released on Friday evening after spending several hours in custody.