PAKISTAN: A group of militants used petrol to set fire to a girls’ school in a former Pakistani Taliban stronghold, destroying furniture, computers and books, police said today, in the latest in a surge in such attacks.

No-one was hurt in the overnight attack in North Waziristan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local police official Rehmat Ullah said. 

THAILAND: Thai prosecutors said today that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra will be indicted for defaming the monarchy, three months after he was freed on parole on other charges.

Mr Thaksin will not yet be indicted because he had filed a request to postpone his original appointment on Wednesday with proof that he has Covid-19.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Authorities in Papua New Guinea were searching today for safer ground to relocate thousands of survivors at risk from a potential second landslide in the South Pacific country’s highlands, while the arrival of heavy earth-moving equipment at the disaster site where hundreds are buried has been delayed, officials said.

Emergency responders say that up to 8,000 people might need to be evacuated as the mass of boulders, earth and splintered trees that crushed the village of Yambali in the nation’s mountainous interior on Friday becomes increasingly unstable.

SWEDEN: Stockholm said today that it will donate 13 billion kronor (£947.5 million) in military aid to Ukraine, in the largest package of assistance Sweden has so far donated.

“It consists of equipment that is at the top of Ukraine’s priority list,” Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch said. It includes air defence, artillery ammunition and armoured vehicles.