BELARUS: Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov is to visit North Korea this week, the two countries announced today.

The three-day visit, at the invitation of the North Korean Foreign Ministry, is expected to focus on discussions of trilateral co-operation involving Russia in the face of their separate confrontations with the West.

PAKISTAN: Islamabad today lodged a strong protest with Germany over its failure to prevent protesters getting into the grounds of the Pakistani consulate in Frankfurt.

The Pakistanis have demanded action against “a gang of extremists” that it says breached security and endangered the lives of its staff.

Pakistan has not identified those involved in the protest.

CROATIA: An assailant entered an elderly care home today in central Croatia and shot five people dead, Croatian media reports said.

The Index news portal said five people died immediately, while others were still receiving medical assistance. The suspect fled the scene, but the police soon caught him in a cafe near the facility in the town of Daruvar.

Authorities are investigating the motive behind the attack.

CHINA: A top Chinese university today took decisive action to sack a professor, a day after a graduate student accused him of sexual harassment on social media posting recordings as evidence.

The woman, who identified herself as Wang Di, said she is studying in a doctoral programme at Renmin University of China’s School of Liberal Arts.

Ms Wang posted a 59-minute video on Sunday on social media in which she said her supervisor, an ex-vice dean at the school in Beijing, physically and verbally abused her.