AFGHANISTAN: The Taliban has released 33 university professors and students abducted nearly two weeks ago.

Ghazni province deputy governor Mohammad Ali Ahmadi said they were released overnight and early yesterday after mediation by tribal elders in the region and Red Cross staff.

The group, most of whom are professors at Kandahar university, were on their way to Kabul earlier this month when their bus was stopped by the Taliban in the province’s Qarabagh district.

SRI LANKA: Police announced on Sunday that they will not allow rallies or marches inciting religious and communal hatred.

Last week a mob led by the group Bodu Bala Sena, or Buddhist Power Force, which rails against the country’s Muslim minority, hurled petrol bombs and looted Muslim homes and businesses in attacks that killed three people and injured more than 50.

Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said yesterday that religious processions will be permitted, but not those inciting communal or religious hatred.

SUDAN: A court has ordered the release of a woman sentenced to death for converting from Islam to Christianity.

The case of Meriam Ibrahim triggered an international outcry.

The 27-year-old was brought up as a Christian after her Muslim father abandoned the family. She married US Christian Daniel Wani in 2011. Deemed to be still a Muslim, she was convicted for adultery in May and sentenced to 100 lashes. For refusing to renounce her faith she was sentenced to hang for apostasy.

INDIA: An anti-Indian protester was killed and four others wounded today in Kashmir when government forces fired at demonstrators protesting about the previous killing of a suspected rebel.

Protesters clashed with troops and tried to burn an armoured vehicle in Sopore.

The protest occurred soon after an 18-hour gun battle in which the suspected rebel was killed.

Residents joined the protesters, chanting slogans such as “We want freedom” and “Down with India.”

THAILAND: The European Union said today that it is suspending all official visits to and from Thailand and shelving important agreements in protest at last month’s military coup.

The signing of an agreement to deepen political and business ties will be put on hold “until a democratically elected government is in place.”

A negotiation round on a free trade agreement planned for July as been cancelled.

ITALY: A labour dispute kept tourists locked out of Pompeii today, the latest in a spate of lengthy closures at the ancient ruins.

The dispute over workers’ schedules and back pay began last week, keeping thousands of visitors shut out for hours at a time during union meetings.

But the government office that runs Pompeii said three meetings planned later this week had been cancelled.

SYRIA: The organisation charged with overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons programme said today that the last of the country’s acknowledged stockpile has been handed over.

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons director general Ahmet Uzumcu said the final 8 per cent of the 1,300-ton stockpile had been loaded on to ships in the Syrian port of Latakia.

UNITED STATES: A new museum highlighting historic and modern struggles for equality opened in Atlanta today.

The National Centre for Civil and Human Rights will showcase the civil-rights movement and modern human-rights struggles separately but aims to show how they are related.

The opening featured speakers including Democratic congressman and civil-rights leader John Lewis.