LIBYA: Three European workers were kidnapped in the western town of Zuwara on Saturday.

One of the workers for an Italian construction company was named by the Italian Foreign Ministry yesterday as Marco Vallisa.

The other two are believed to be from Bosnia and Macedonia.

Libyan authorities said one man suspected of involvement in the abduction had been arrested.

HONDURAS: Rescue team leader Anibal Godoy said today that eight miners trapped underground were unlikely to be found alive.

The unregulated San Juan Arriba goldmine caved in on Wednesday. Eleven miners were able to escape and three were rescued on Friday. Efforts to find the remaining eight continue.

INDIA: Eleven construction workers were killed today when the boundary wall of a warehouse collapsed.

The workers, from Tamil Nadu’s Thiruvallur district, had been sleeping in makeshift shacks they had constructed next to the warehouse when the wall came down after heavy rains, according to local official K Veera Raghav Rao.

Eight days ago more than 60 people died in Tamil Nadu capital Chennai when an 11-storey building under construction collapsed.

NIGERIA: The Defence Ministry said today troops had killed “at least 50” insurgents who stormed an army base.

Six soldiers including the commanding officer died in the fighting.

Authorities said Islamist extremist group Boko Haram was believed responsible and might have been seeking revenge for an air raid on one of its strongholds 24 hours earlier.

CHINA: An emergency operation was launched today to rescue 17 trapped miners in Xinjiang autonomous region.

Gas exploded at a coalmine 70 miles from regional capital Urumqi on Saturday night. Three miners have already been rescued.

The pit is owned by Dahuangshan Yuxin Coalmining Company, a state subsidiary.

UGANDA: More tan 40 gunmen were killed at the weekend in clashes between security forces and a tribal militia.

Attacks took place in Kasese, Ntoroko and Bundibugyo, near the Congo border. Police spokesman Fred Enanga said the attacks came from “thugs” armed with guns, spears and machetes.

Seventeen attackers had been arrested and police were pursuing the others, he said.

PAKISTAN: The trial of five men for stoning a pregnant woman to death begins tomorrow.

Farzana Parveen, 25, was on her way to court to contest an abduction case her family had filed against her husband, whom they did not wish her to marry, when she was beaten to death with bricks.

Her father, two brothers, a cousin and a man who claims he was married to her are charged with torture and murder.

Hundreds of women are killed in so-called “honour” killings each year in Pakistan.

SYRIA: The so-called Syrian National Coalition (SNC), a Western-backed anti-government organisation mostly composed of exiles, began a three-day meeting today to pick a new president.

The SNC added that it would elect a range of top officials although its always limited influence in Syria has been reduced to near-zero by the advance of extremist rebel group Isis.

MEXICO: A man arrested at the weekend has now confessed to killing five women and girls, police said today.

Filiberto Hernandez Martinez killed the five from 2010 onwards. His oldest victim was 32-year-old factory worker Eliehoenai Chavez. The others were all children, the youngest nine-year-old Dulce Jimena Reyes.