INTERNATIONAL

Police in Bangladesh say two people including a leading gay rights activist and editor at Bangladesh’s only LGBT magazine have been hacked to death. The US ambassador to Bangladesh condemned the killing of Xulhaz Mannan, who also worked at the US embassy. Another person was also injured when the attackers entered a Dhaka flat. Since February last year suspected militants ...

The Kurdish rebel PKK movement has told the BBC that it is ready to intensify its fight against Turkey because Ankara is trying to make it surrender. Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Cemil Bayik said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was “escalating this war”. “The Kurds will defend themselves to the end, so long as this is the Turkish approach – ...

The daughter of a Bangladeshi professor who was hacked to death in a murder echoing the killing of several secularists says he was not an atheist. So-called Islamic State (IS) said it was behind the death of Rezaul Karim Siddique, who was killed on Saturday. A statement from the militant group accused him of “calling to atheism”. But his daughter ...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top EU officials are visiting a migrant camp on the Turkish-Syrian border, as they seek to bolster a controversial EU-Turkey deal. The delegation is inspecting living conditions at the Nizip camp, home to some 5,000 migrants. However, rights groups have criticised the visit as “sanitised”. They also question the legality of the deal, which deports ...

A university professor has been hacked to death in Bangladesh, in an attack police say is similar to a number of killings of secular bloggers and atheist activists in the past months. AFM Rezaul Karim Siddique, 58, was a professor of English at Rajshahi University in the west of the country. He was attacked with machetes by unidentified assailants while ...

Barack Obama has urged the UK to stick with the EU, as he began his final trip to Britain as US president by having lunch with the Queen. Mr Obama, who is on a three-day visit with his wife Michelle, is meeting PM David Cameron for talks. Mr Obama has told the Daily Telegraph being in the EU magnified Britain’s ...

Venezuela is introducing power cuts of four hours a day from next week to deal with a worsening energy crisis. The cuts will last for 40 days as the country struggles under a severe drought limiting hydroelectric output. It is the latest setback to Venezuela’s economy which has been hit by a sharp fall in the price of its main ...

Volkswagen will offer “substantial compensation” and car buy-back deals in the US as part of a settlement of the the diesel emissions scandal. Final details of the packages offered will be announced in June, but a court had given VW and regulators until Thursday to reach a deal in principle. Last year, US regulators discovered that VW cars were fitted ...

At least 28 people have been killed and 329 injured in a huge explosion in the centre of the Afghan capital Kabul, police and officials say. A suicide attacker detonated a vehicle and a fierce gun battle followed. Officials say the attack is now over and the area has been cleared. A Taliban spokesman said the group carried out the ...

At least 413 people are now known to have died in the earthquake that struck Ecuador, the country’s government says. The 7.8-magnitude quake struck Ecuador’s Pacific coast on Saturday, and the search for survivors continues. The cost of rebuilding is likely to be in the billions of dollars, President Rafael Correa said during a visit to the worst-affected region. He ...