INDONESIA: Top court today heard appeals lodged by two losing presidential candidates, Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, who are demanding a re-vote, alleging widespread irregularities and fraud at the polls.

Controversial Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto won the election with more than twice the runner-up’s share in the three-way race, according to the General Election Commission.

UKRAINE: President Volodymyr Zelensky today sacked the country’s secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, Oleksii Danilov.

Mr Zelensky replaced him with Oleksandr Lytvynenko, the head of the country’s Foreign Intelligence Service. He said that Mr Danilov had been “reassigned to another area” as the war with Russia drags on into its third year.

The reshuffle follows Mr Zelensky’s decision in February to fire the country’s chief military officer, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, replacing him with Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi.

SWEDEN: An Iraqi man who carried out several Koran burnings in Sweden told a newspaper today that he would seek asylum in neighbouring Norway in the wake of a deportation order by authorities in Stockholm.

Salwan Momika has staged several burnings and desecrations of the sacred book of Islam in Sweden over the past few years.

TUNISIA: A Tunisian court sentenced four people to death and two to life in prison on charges stemming from the murder of a left-wing politician, a public prosecutor said today.

Chokri Belaid, the leader of the Popular Front coalition, was shot in his car outside his home in Tunis in February 2013. 

His assassination, the country’s first in decades, prompted mass protests and helped lead to the resignation of then-prime minister Ali Larayedh.