UK return nears for Melissa Reid
Convicted drugs mule Melissa Reid could return to the UK within weeks after Peruvian authorities approved a prison transfer.
The 21-year-old, jailed for cocaine smuggling in 2013, has been seeking to serve the remainder of her six-year sentence closer to home in Scotland.
Reid, from Lenzie, East Dunbartonshire, and Michaella McCollum, from Co Tyrone, were caught with £1.5m worth of drugs at Lima airport.
Anglo trial to resume tomorrow
The trial of three former Anglo Irish Bank officials accused of hiding accounts connected with former chairman Sean FitzPatrick in an alleged tax evasion scheme will resume tomorrow.
The trial was due to resume this morning but a juror suffered a bereavement over the weekend and was attending the funeral today.
Former company secretary, Bernard Daly of Collins Avenue West, Whitehall, Dublin, former Chief Operations Officer Tiarnan O'Mahoney of Glen Pines, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow and Aoife Maguire of Rothe Abbey, South Circular Road, Kilmainham, Dublin have pleaded not guilty to seven alleged offences committed in 2003 and 2004.
Ruling in Egypt trial of Al Jazeera journalists set for 30 July
An Egyptian court said it would issue a ruling on 30 July in the retrial of two Al Jazeera television journalists previously sentenced to seven to ten years in prison.
Mohamed Fahmy, a naturalised Canadian who has given up his Egyptian citizenship, and Egyptian Baher Mohamed were previously charged with aiding a terrorist organisation, a reference to the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
A third Al Jazeera journalist, Australian Peter Greste, was deported in February.
Taliban ambush kills 11 Afghan soldiers
At least 11 Afghan soldiers were killed in a Taliban ambush in western Afghanistan, officials said today.
It comes as security forces face their first fighting season without NATO combat support.
"The Taliban ambushed a convoy of soldiers in Karukh district of Herat, killing 11 Afghan army soldiers last evening.
“The soldiers were riding in pickup trucks," Ehsanullah Hayat, spokesman for the governor of the western province of Herat, told AFP news agency.
Australia police will not help IS fighter's kids: grandmother
The Australian mother-in-law of a notorious self-styled Islamic State group fighter has said she was "devastated" that police had refused to help bring her five grandchildren home from Syria.
Karen Nettleton's daughter Tara is married to Khaled Sharrouf, who gained global infamy last year when he posted pictures of himself and his seven-year-old son on Twitter holding up the severed heads of soldiers.
News emerged last week that Sharrouf may have died in the same drone attack believed to have killed fellow Australian jihadist Mohamed Elomar, raising concerns about what would happen to his children who were taken to Syria last year.
"My advice to the family is to engage with the proper legal authorities and not to conduct this discussion through the media," Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said.
But Ms Nettleton said she had been in contact with the police over a period of months beginning last year about bringing home the children, now aged between four and 14.
Burundi starts voting in parliamentary election
Voting in a parliamentary election began in Burundi today, the first in a series of polls whose credibility has been undermined by weeks of violent protest sparked by President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to seek a third term.
The African Union stood down its election observers yesterday, saying the election would be neither free nor fair.
Burundi has been in turmoil since April, when Mr Nkurunziza said he would seek a third term, exacerbating months of protests and triggering an abortive military coup last month.
Voters lined up outside polling stations due to open at 6am in Bujumbura, but voting was delayed by 30 minutes at most polling stations in the capital, and state radior eported longer delays in the rural areas.
