SYRIA: Scores of US-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighbourhoods in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo yesterday as part of a deal with the central government in Damascus, which is expanding its authority in the country.

The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh, which had been under the control of Kurdish fighters in Aleppo over the past decade.

BOLIVIA: A powerful explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old baby, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in north-west Bolivia, police said.

The blast hit the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups dispute access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, some about 90 miles north-west of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. 

SLOVAKIA: Thousands marched through Slovakia’s capital on Thursday before a planned rally in front of parliament to condemn draft legislation that critics consider detrimental for many nongovernmental organisations.

The organisers of the rally in Bratislava said that the draft legislation is designed to scare and control people who stand up against the government.

LIBYA: Authorities in Libya accused aid groups on Thursday of plotting to change the country’s ethnic make up by encouraging sub-Saharan African migrants to stay in the country and have ordered them to close their offices.

Ten groups have been asked to close their operations — including Doctors Without Borders and the Norwegian Refugee Council.

The Libyans accused the aid groups of attempting to “change the demographic composition of the country.”