BELGIUM: Police fired water cannon and tear gas at anti-lockdown demonstrators in Brussels yesterday.

The main demo passed off peacefully but a group stormed the barricades surrounding the headquarters of the European Commission and threw firecrackers and a bicycle at officers, authorities said.

PAKISTAN: Over 100 people have been arrested over the lynching of a Sri Lankan factory manager, Prime Minister Imran Khan told Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa yesterday.

The Sri Lankan was accused of desecrating posters featuring the name of the Prophet Mohammed and a mob stormed the factory, killing him and publicly burning his body.

They accused him of blasphemy, which carries a death sentence in Pakistan.

ISRAEL: Palestinian hunger-striker Kayed Fasfous was released yesterday, two weeks after he ended a 131-day hunger strike against Israel’s “administrative detention” policy under which it can lock up Palestinians indefinitely without charge.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club, a group representing former and current prisoners, confirmed Fasfous had returned home to the occupied West Bank having spent a fortnight in hospital following the end of his hunger strike.

INDONESIA: Rescuers were sifting thick mud and ash in Lumajang on Java yesterday following a volcanic eruption on Saturday that killed at least 14.

Mount Semeru spewed hot ash 40,000 feet into the sky as a “lava dome” on its crater was breached by heavy rains, according to geological survey centre chief Eko Budi Lelono.

Hot ash and mud buried several small hamlets.

A further collapse of the dome was possible which would cause another eruption.