GERMANY: A former student who wounded an eight-year-old boy with a knife at a school in the east of the country may have intended to set the building on fire, police said today.

The 16-year-old suspect set himself alight after the knife attack in Bischofswerda, east of Dresden, on Wednesday. The flames were extinguished and he was arrested.

The police said there were “initial indications that the suspect possibly wanted to set fire to the school.”

FRANCE: President Emmanuel Macron vowed today to press on with key economic, immigration and education changes despite political challenges that have included months of protests against an attack on pension rights and an uprising over the police killing of a teenager.

Mr Macron said in a wide-ranging interview with Le Point magazine published today that he would meet the “main political leaders” next week for talks on the issues confronting France. 

ZIMBABWE: President Emmerson Mnangagwa was forced to extend voting in the general election for an extra day at dozens of polling stations due to massive delays in the distribution of ballot papers.

Ballot papers were still being printed late on Wednesday, hours after voting should have ended, while vote counting had begun at other polling stations.

PALESTINE: An explosion ripped through a Hamas facility in the central Gaza Strip today, killing one person and seriously wounding another, Palestinian authorities said.

Gaza’s Interior Ministry did not reveal the cause of the blast but said that it had killed Ashraf Hussein, a member of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.

The brigades acknowledged that Mr Hussein had been killed and described the explosion as an accident.