UNITED STATES: Four technology companies including Apple and Google appealed yesterday against a judge’s rejection of a proposed $324.5 million (£198.94m) settlement in a lawsuit over hiring practices in Silicon Valley.

Technology workers accused Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe of conspiring to avoid poaching each others’ employees. Last month district judge Lucy Koh rejected the proposed settlement, saying the amount was too low.

KENYA: The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has asked for the trial of President Uhuru Kenyatta to be adjourned indefinitely because the Kenyan government’s refusal to co-operate means she lacks evidence.

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she did not have enough evidence to prosecute Mr Kenyatta, who is accused of stoking a wave of lethal inter-ethnic violence after Kenya’s 2007 elections.

PALESTINE: A senior Hamas leader has rejected Israel’s demand that the group be disarmed as a condition for ending the long-running blockade of the Gaza Strip and permitting the opening of an airport and seaport there.

Ismail Haniyeh said yesterday that “we cannot accept or deal with any international decision to disarm the resistance.”

Israel has said it will press for Hamas’s disarmament in indirect talks in Cairo.

PALESTINE: The Israeli government published tenders for 283 new homes in a West Bank settlement yesterday, days after announcing its biggest land-grab of occupied Palestinian territory for three decades.

The expansion of the Elkana settlement, in the north-west of the West Bank, was approved in January, Israel’s Land Authority said.

Israel’s settlement building is illegal under international law.

CHINA: The authorities announced yesterday that a jail warden and three other police officers had been fired after a rare jailbreak in northern China by three inmates who strangled a guard.

Harbin police said four police officers, including the warden and a deputy police chief who oversaw the facility, had been fired and placed under investigation. They are likely to be accused of negligence.

PAKISTAN: Heavy monsoon rains killed 40 people as flash floods inundated villages, prompting authorities to send troops to evacuate residents.

The meteorological service warned of more flash flooding over the weekend.

In Lahore, 13 people died when roofs collapsed, said the National Disaster Management Authority.

The rains also triggered landslides that killed six civilians and three soldiers in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

NIGERIA: Residents said yesterday that hundreds of people have fled from the Borno state capital Maiduguri, fearing attacks from Boko Haram.

Human rights leader Chidi Odinkalu said people had no confidence in the military since soldiers were evacuating their own families.

Mr Odinkalu said that “After 41 yrs in Maiduguri, my family will quit this weekend to escape the insurgency.”

Boko Haram has seized several nearby towns recently.