AFGHANISTAN: Gunmen killed 10 people and wounded 14 more in an attack on the Halo Trust de-mining organisation, the Interior Ministry said today.

The Taliban denied responsibility, though the government blamed it.

The UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs said the “heinous” attack was a deliberate massacre of humanitarian workers.

POLAND: Thousands of miners rallied in Warsaw today against plans to phase out coal-fired power stations and an EU court order to shut down a mine.

Abandoning coal will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, the miners’ trade unions said.

Poland has not implemented an EU order to close the Turow brown coal mine, which the Czech Republic says is draining water from border villages.

Poland says shutting the mine would cut power to two million homes.

BULGARIA: A Bulgarian Air Force MiG-29 fighter jet crashed into the Black Sea today and its pilot is missing.

The fighter was taking part in Shabla 21, part of Sabre Guardian, a US-led series of exercises comprising part of the huge Defender Europe 21 war games designed to intimidate Russia which have been conducted across eastern Europe since March.

Bulgaria has been ordered to replace its MiGs with US-built F-16 planes for interoperability with the US war machine.

COLOMBIA: Human Rights Watch said today that Colombian police officers had been responsible for the deaths of at least 20 people and other violent actions including sexual abuse and arbitrary detentions during the crackdown on the uprising that has raged against President Ivan Duque in recent months.

“These brutal abuses are not isolated incidents by rogue officers, but rather the result of systemic shortcomings of the Colombian police,” said the charity’s director for the Americas Jose Miguel Vivanco.