KENYA: A lorry full of petroleum gas cylinders exploded on Thursday night, igniting a blaze that burned homes and warehouses and left three people dead, officials said today.

Another 280 people were hurt, 24 of them critically, after a huge fireball erupted from the storage depot in Nairobi. The death toll is expected to rise.

JAPAN: Residents of towns near nuclear power plants handed in a petition today asking the government to suspend preparations to restart shut-down reactors.

They want a full investigation of power cuts that hit two mothballed reactors at Shika on the Noto peninsula during a recent earthquake and whether this indicates that the plants would be unsafe in future quakes.

TURKEY: Seven people were arrested today on suspicion of selling secrets to Israel’s Mossad spy agency.

Israel says it is willing to assassinate members of Hamas wherever they live and has done so in foreign countries including Lebanon.

Several senior Hamas officials live in Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned of serious consequences if Israel tries to carry out attacks on its soil.

SINGAPORE: The “racist” grilling of TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew by a US senate committee has sparked a backlash, with thousands complaining that it was disrespectful to Singapore.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton repeatedly asked Mr Chew if he was a member of or affiliated to the Chinese Communist Party, despite the businessman telling him he was from Singapore.