GUATEMALA: A lawyer who worked closely with farmworkers and indigenous people was killed in an apparent ambush, human rights organisations said on Thursday.

Jose Domingo was with two members of the United Farmworkers Committee when they were shot by a group of men on Wednesday, south of the capital.

Land ownership issues are often contentious in rural Guatemala where indigenous peoples and farmworkers struggle to obtain title to the land they live on and frequently face illegal evictions.

ROMANIA: An explosion at a DIY shop in the country’s north-east today injured at least 13 people, four seriously, the authorities said.

A mobile intensive care unit was dispatched to the scene in the town of Botosani, in Suceava county, emergency authorities said.

The retail company, Dedeman, said in a statement that at the time of the explosion, which occurred at about 10.30am, an “authorised external company” was working on the shop’s gas supply system and that authorities are working to determine what caused the explosion.

FRANCE: US President Joe Biden apologised publicly to Ukraine today for a six-month congressional delay of a $61 billion (£47.bn) package of military assistance to the country.

Mr Biden met in Paris with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who appealed for bipartisan US support going forward “like it was during World War II.”

“I apologise for those weeks of not knowing what’s going to happen in terms of funding,” Mr Biden said. “We’re still in. Completely. Thoroughly,” he said.

SWEDEN: Police detained 19 pro-Palestinian activists who barricaded themselves in the country’s main technical education and research university today.

After two hours, police carried out the masked activists from the third floor of a Royal Institute of Technology building in Stockholm. They are likely to be prosecuted for trespassing and disobeying the police, according to police.

At around noon, the activists blocked the entrance of a student building at the institute, known by its Swedish acronym KTH, with chairs and tables.