PAKISTAN: Authorities closed a key border crossing with landlocked Afghanistan today shortly after border guards from the two sides exchanged fire, officials and residents said, in a sign of increasing tensions between the two neighbours.

There were no reports of casualties, and it was not immediately known why the border guards from the two sides exchanged fire, said Nasrullah Khan, an official in Torkham, a town in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

CONGO: The humanitarian situation in conflict-wracked eastern Congo has left eight million people in urgent need of assistance and women and girls subjected to sexual violence on a massive scale, according to the United Nations.

Edem Wosornu, the UN humanitarian office’s operations director said the situation in Congo “was shocking, heartbreaking and sobering” and that the situation in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces were “the worst situation we have ever seen.” 

UNITED NATIONS: About $125 million (£99.9m) was released by the UN from its emergency relief fund on Tuesday to boost underfunded humanitarian operations in 14 countries around the world.

Afghanistan and Yemen top the list of recipients, with each getting $20 (£15.9m), followed by Burkina Faso and Myanmar at $9m (£7.1m) each and Mali, Haiti and Venezuela at $8m (£6.3m) each.

OIL: Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed on Tuesday to extend their oil production cuts through the end of this year, trimming 1.3 million barrels of crude out of the global market and boosting energy prices.

The countries’ moves could increase inflation and the cost for motorists at gasoline pumps. It also puts new pressure on Saudi Arabia’s already strained relationship with the United States.