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Denmark

A DANISH man suspected of killing five people with a bow and arrows in Norway had converted to Islam and police had been in contact with him due to radicalisation fears, police said yesterday. The 37-year-old is in police custody after the deadly attack late in of Kongsberg, 80km west of Oslo. Five people, four women and one man, died and two others were injured in the attack, which shocked the usually peaceful country. The victims were between 50 and 70 years old. The attack was the deadliest in the country since far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in 2011. | AFP

Lebanon

AT LEAST two people were killed in

Beirut on Thursday when heavy gunfire targeted supporters of the Lebanese

Shia group Hezbollah, as they demanded the removal of the judge investigating last year’s deadly explosion at the city’s port. The Lebanese army said the gunfire had targeted protesters as they passed through a traffic circle in an area dividing Christian and Shia Muslim areas. Tensions over the probe into the port explosion have risen, with Iran-backed Hezbollah calling for the judge’s removal. The judge wants to question a number of politicians, including Hezbollah allies. | AFP

Bangladesh

BANGLADESH police shot dead four people as hundreds vandalised several Hindu temples across the Muslim-majority country, police said yesterday. Police opened fire on a mob of over 500 people following furore over footage of a Qua’ran being placed on the knee of a figure of the Hindu monkey god Hanuman during a religious festival. In the main incident, a mob attacked a Hindu temple and clashed with police in the southern town of Hajiganj, leaving four dead and two dozen injured. Hindus, who make up 10% of Bangladesh’s 169 million population, have faced sporadic violence. | AFP

CHINA will send three taikonauts to its new space station tomorrow, officials confirmed yesterday, in what will be Beijing’s longest crewed mission to date. The three will blast off from the launch centre in north-western China’s Gobi desert, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said. They will spend six months at the Tiangong space station’s core module, Tianhe. Their mission aims to test “critical technologies” for assembling Tiangong. The mission will also include spacewalks to install components needed for future construction work. The taikonauts include Wang Yaping, 41, the first woman to visit the nation’s space station. | AFP