INTERNATIONAL

Pakistan has been hit by violence on the day of its general elections – with at least 31 dead in the worst attack. A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a polling station in the city of Quetta. The Islamic State group said it had carried out the attack. Elsewhere, minor blasts and clashes left several injured and two dead. ...

Voting has begun in Pakistan after an election campaign overshadowed by concerns of manipulation and violence. Nearly 106 million people are registered to vote for members of the lower house of parliament and four provincial assemblies. The PTI party of former star cricketer Imran Khan is hoping to beat ex-leader Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N. But the Human Rights Commission says there ...

Survivors of the wildfires that have killed at least 74 people in Greece have described how they were forced into the sea by a blaze that “struck like a flamethrower”. “The flames were chasing us all the way to the water,” said one victim. Meanwhile, the bodies of 26 adults and children who apparently died hugging each other were found ...

Militant Islamists have stormed a military base in southern Somalia after detonating a suicide car bomb. Al-Shabab says its fighters killed 27 soldiers in the raid, about 50km (31 miles) from the port city of Kismayo. A government spokesman confirmed to BBC Somali that the militants had seized the base, before soldiers retook it after heavy fighting. Six soldiers and ...

Gunmen in South Africa have killed 11 taxi drivers in an ambush, police say. The men from Gauteng province were travelling to Johannesburg on Saturday night when their minibus was fired at. The dead men, and four more who were critically injured, were returning from a colleague’s funeral in the coastal region of Kwa-Zulu Natal, police said. The motive is ...

Israel says it has carried out an evacuation of members of Syria’s White Helmets civil defence group from a war zone in south-western Syria. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had acted on a request from the US and European nations. Some 800 people were evacuated to Jordan via the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights overnight, Israeli media say. The White ...

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has called for racial unity ahead of landmark elections, telling white farmers their lands will not be taken. Former President Robert Mugabe’s government supported the seizure of hundreds of white-owned farms which they saw as unfairly taken by settlers. But Mr Mnangagwa, 75, told a crowd in Harare that the controversial policy was a thing of ...

Israel has evacuated members of a Syrian civil defence group – said by media to be the White Helmets – from a war zone in south-western Syria. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had acted on a request from the US and European nations. Some 800 people were evacuated to Jordan via the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights overnight, Israeli media ...

Hackers have stolen personal data in Singapore belonging to some 1.5 million people, or about a quarter of the population, officials say. They broke into the government health database in a “deliberate, targeted and well-planned” attack, a government statement says. Those targeted visited clinics between 1 May 2015 and 4 July of this year. Data taken include names and addresses ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has rounded on US critics of his first bilateral summit with President Donald Trump. Certain forces in the US wanted to sacrifice US-Russian ties for their “narrow party interests”, he told a meeting of Russian diplomats in Moscow. “They are feeding millions of their people stories,” he said. Mr Trump has been accused of taking a ...