GERMANY: Police entered a bank today and rescued two hostages from a locked room.

Regional police said they were alerted to the situation at the Volksbank branch in the Rhine valley town of Sinzig near Koblenz, at about 9am.

Shortly before 3pm, special forces entered the bank and freed two people unhurt from the room but found no hostage-takers.

NETHERLANDS: A bomb pushed through a letter box exploded at the party headquarters of Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten on Thursday. No-one was hurt.

Police arrested a 37-year-old suspect late on Thursday at D66 Party headquarters in The Hague, but declined to give any further details.

RWANDA: Government critic Aimable Karasira died in custody this week just as he was set to be freed from jail, prompting Human Rights Watch to call for a probe into the academic’s death.

Mr Karasira died after he overdosed of his own medication, according to Rwandan authorities.

But Human Rights Watch said there are many reasons to question the circumstances of his death, “not least the years of harassment and persecution he experienced at the hands of the authorities.”

NORTH KOREA: Pyongyang said today that it will deploy new long-range artillery systems this year that are capable of striking South Korea’s capital region and will commission its first naval destroyer in coming weeks.

The announcement comes days after South Korea said the North’s newly revised constitution drops all references to Korean unification, in line with leader Kim Jong Un’s vows to cut ties with the South and establish a two-state system on the Korean peninsula.