Jurors in the New York trial of alleged al-Qaeda operative Suleiman Abu Ghaith have watched videos of the defendant warning of a “storm” of airplane attacks a month after September 11, 2001.

A bomber driving a minibus packed with explosives killed at least 45 people and wounded 157 on Sunday in the southern Iraqi city of Hilla, police and medical sources said.

The powerful Afghan vice president died of natural causes on Sunday, a government spokesman said, only weeks before Afghanistan goes to the polls to elect a new president.

Starvation tactics against civilians are being used as a weapon of war by the Syrian government, Amnesty International says.

Russia has made a “big miscalculation” in entering Crimea, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has warned.

At least two Yemeni soldiers and four militants were killed in a clash on Saturday when fighters tried to attack a military compound in southern Yemen, the Defence Ministry said.

Saudi Arabia has listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation along with two al-Qaeda-linked groups fighting in Syria.

Malaysian authorities announced that they were now investigating the possibility a missing Malaysian Airlines plane had turned back before disappearing, and were widening the search area accordingly.

Khaled al-Khalidi, vice chairman of the Popular Committee in Shu’fat, said the problem had left hundreds of homes, clinics, health centers, educational institutions, associations and shops without water.

“The evidence available concerning the nature, quality and quantity of the agents used on 21 August indicated that the perpetrators likely had access to the chemical weapons stockpile of the Syrian military, as well as the expertise and equipment necessary to manipulate safely large amount of chemical agents,” the U.N. investigators said in the report.