RUSSIA: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was convicted of espionage today and sentenced to 16 years on charges that his employer and the United States have rejected as fabricated.
The conclusion of the trial perhaps cleared the way for a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.
Mr Gershkovich was detained in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and accused of spying for the US.
TECHNOLOGY: A global technology outage grounded flights, knocked banks offline and knocked media outlets off air today in a massive disruption that affected companies and services around the world and highlighted dependence on software from a handful of providers.
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.
The issue affected Microsoft 365 apps and services.
NIGERIA: Public-sector workers in Nigeria on the minimum wage will see their salaries double after the government reached an agreement on Thursday with trade unions that have threatened further strikes over the spiralling cost of living.
The new minimum monthly wage is set at 70,000 naira (£34), six times lower than what the unions were demanding. They accepted the offer with “mixed feelings,” Nigerian Labour Congress President Joe Ajaero said on Thursday.
PAKISTAN: Counterterrorism police in Pakistan have arrested al-Qaida leader Amin ul Haq who was allegedly a close aide to Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 2001, attacks in the United States, officials said today.
Deputy inspector general of police Usman Gondal said he was nabbed by the counter-terrorism department in Punjab province after a long hunt.