Hundreds of people are believed to have died in clashes between rival South Sudan army factions, the UN says, quoting unconfirmed reports.

At least three people were killed and many were injured when police opened fire on Jamaat e Islami activists who were protesting the execution of JI leader Abdul Quader Molla on Sunday.

A bomb explosion killed and wounded several members of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali in the troubled northern city of Kidal, a spokesman for the mission said Saturday.

Bangladesh on Thursday hanged an Islamist leader known as the “Butcher of Mirpur”, making him the first person to be put to death for massacres committed during the bloody 1971 war of independence.

Bangladesh’s highest court upheld the death penalty for a top Islamist leader convicted of war crimes, just two days after he was given a dramatic last-minute reprieve from execution.

Bangladesh’s highest court has halted the execution of a top opposition leader, just an hour and a half before he was set to become the first person executed for war crimes committed during the country’s 1971 war of independence.

A suspected car bomb attack outside a popular hotel in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Friday evening killed at least six people and left the area covered with blood and burning vehicles, a senior police officer has said.

Tajikistan’s President Imomali Rakhmon has won a new seven-year term in Wednesday’s election, receiving 83.1 percent of the vote after all ballots were counted, according to the country’s Central Election Commission (CEC).

A court in Bangladesh on Tuesday sentenced 152 people to death for their actions in a 2009 border guard mutiny in which 74 people, including 57 military commanders, were killed.

Polling has opened in the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan in a presidential election in which incumbent Emomali Rakhmon is set to win a new seven-year term.