SOMALIA: A car bomb killed two people today after detonating outside a Mogadishu hospital run by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

A doctor and a nurse died while five other people were wounded in the attack.

The 65-bed hospital has been operational for much of Somalia’s 23-year conflict, making it one of the city’s most important health facilities.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast.

AFGHANISTAN: Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah demanded election organisers stop counting ballots today over allegations of widespread fraud.

Millions of Afghans turned out on Saturday for a second-round run-off to elect President Hamid Karzai’s successor.

The vote pitted former foreign minister Mr Abdullah against ex-World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani since neither secured the 50 per cent needed to win outright in the first round.

UNITED STATES: The Justice Department announced on Tuesday that mortgage lender SunTrust had agreed to pay nearly $1 billion (£590 million) to resolve allegations of underwriting and providing faulty mortgages.

The settlement with government agencies will include money for homeowner relief.

Authorities said SunTrust Mortgage originated and underwrote bad loans between 2006 and 2012, gave borrowers false and misleading information and charged unauthorised fees.

SWEDEN: Scandinavian airline group SAS said today that it would make more cutbacks, including 300 layoffs, after the company’s second-quarter net loss doubled and revenue dipped by 15 per cent.

CEO Rickard Gustafson described the result as “deeply disappointing” and said that the airline now planned savings of 1 billion kronor during the 2014-2015 fiscal year.

NIGERIA: The west African nation is losing an estimated £20.7 million a day from oil theft and needs to put a “full, final stop” to the growing black market for crude exports, a national conference report said on Tuesday.

The energy committee of Nigeria’s National Conference said the losses were “equivalent to roughly a quarter of Nigeria’s annual revenue. 

President Goodluck Jonathan convened the conference in March. 

UNITED STATES: A proposal to divest stock in protest of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is attacting support from Presbyterians.

A committee of the Presbyterian General Assembly approved a resolution today that would direct the church to liquidate its holdings in Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard, whose products are used by the Israeli government in the occupied territories.

The full assembly will vote on the proposal later this week.

PAKISTAN: A US drone strike targeting a militant hideout in a north-western tribal region near the Afghan border killed four men today, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

The missiles hit a vehicle and a compound in the town of Dandey Darpakhel in North Waziristan.

It was the third illegal strike in the past two weeks since the US resumed them after a six month break.

SRI LANKA: Police arrested 49 people overnight in connection with anti-Muslim riots in which Buddhist extremists set shops and homes ablaze.

Both Buddhists and Muslims were arrested during a police crackdown in southern resort towns where two nights of violence left four people dead.

A curfew was also lifted in the mainly-Muslim towns of Beruwala and Alutgama, where followers of the extremist Buddhist Force, or BBS, went on the rampage on Sunday and Monday nights.