URUGUAY: President Jose Mujica signed off on regulations for his country’s landmark legalisation of cannabis yesterday.

The country has become the first in the world to announce that it would regulate the market for cannabis and its derivatives.

Buyers must be 18 or older, residents of Uruguay, and must register with authorities.

LEBANON: Parliament again failed to elect a new president yesterday as MPs affiliated with a Hezbollah-led alliance boycotted the third round of voting.

Only 73 MPs turned up, well short of the 86 needed to meet parliament’s two-thirds quorum.

SYRIA: Hundreds of rebels left Homs yesterday under a ceasefire deal with government forces.

The exit of 1,200 fighters and civilians marks a de-facto end to the rebellion in the battered city, which was one of the first places to rise up against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

By early afternoon over 400 fighters had boarded several batches of buses that departed from a police command centre on the edge of Homs’ rebel-held areas, heading north.

CUBA: Four Cuban exile residents of Miami have been detained on the socialist island accused of planning “terrorist actions,” Havana said yesterday.

The Interior Ministry said the men were arrested on April 26.

“They intended to attack military installations with the objective of furthering violent actions,” the authorities said.

The detained men were named as Jose Ortega Amador, Obdulio Rodriguez Gonzalez, Raibel Pacheco Santos and Felix Monzon Alvarez.

NIGERIA: Boko Haram Islamic militants have killed as many as 300 people in an 12-hour attack on a border town in Nigeria’s remote north-east, a government official said yesterday.

Shops and homes were set alight in the Monday night attack on Gamboru Ngala, on Nigeria’s border with Cameroon.

The attackers sprayed gunfire into crowds of people at a busy market, that is open at night when temperatures cool in the semi-desert region

INDONESIA: A woman who was gang-raped by men for allegedly having extramarital sex now faces a public caning for violating Islamic law.

The 25-year-old widow said she was raped by eight men who claimed to find her having sex with a married man in her house.

The men reportedly beat the man, doused the two with sewage and then turned them over to Islamic police in Aceh province.

MEXICO: Energy officials said yesterday they expect to open bidding on the first round of private oil contracts in the first half of 2015.

A constitutional reform passed last year opened the state-owned energy sector to private investment.

Assistant Energy Secretary Lourdes Melgar said the first round of bidding is expected to offer a range of onshore, offshore and deep water fields.

INDIA: Violence flared again in Kashmir yesterday as millions of Indians voted in the penultimate day of national elections.

An explosion at a polling booth injured a paramilitary soldier and three other troops were wounded when suspected militants opened fired at them.

Police said scores of protesters also clashed with patrolling soldiers who used tear gas to quell the protests.