CAMBODIA: A court convicted four land rights activists today of plotting to provoke a peasant revolution by teaching farmers about class divisions, giving them five-year suspended prison terms.

Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community president Theng Savoeun and his colleagues Nhel Pheap, Than Hach and Chan Vibol were arrested and charged last May by the Ratanakiri provincial court in north-eastern Cambodia.

AFGHANISTAN: Almost 100,000 children are in dire need of support, three months after earthquakes devastated the country’s west, United Nations children’s agency Unicef said today.

A 6.3-magnitude earthquake shook Herat province on October 7 and a second strong quake struck the same province four days later, killing more than 1,000 people. 

UKRAINE: The United Nations appealed today for $4.2 billion (around £3.3bn) this year to help people in Ukraine and refugees abroad, saying that those on the front lines have “exhausted their meagre resources” and that many of people who have fled the country are vulnerable too.

About $3.1bn (£2.4bn) is meant to support some 8.5 million people inside Ukraine, with the remaining $1.1bn (around £865,000) earmarked for refugees and host communities abroad.

IRAN: Imprisoned Nobel peace prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has received an additional jail term of 15 months for allegedly spreading propaganda against the Islamic republic, her family said today.

The court verdict also said that after serving her sentence, Ms Mohammadi would be banned from travelling abroad for two years and barred from membership of political and social groups and using a mobile phone for the same duration.