Jerusalem / AFP Israeli authorities have advanced plans for 770 new settlement homes in annexed east Jerusalem, officials and rights groups said on Monday, drawing condemnation from Palestinian leaders and the United Nations. The homes would expand the Gilo settlement on the southern perimeter of east Jerusalem. They are part of a larger plan for around 1,200 units approved some …

  Antananarivo / AFP A house fire during a party in central Madagascar killed 38 people including 16 children as the blaze ripped through a thatched roof, police said Monday. The victims—the youngest only six months old—were trapped inside the house in Ambalavato village of Ikalamavony district in the rural centre of the island. The party-goers, including several relatives of the …

  Ansbach / AFP A failed Syrian asylum seeker who blew himself up outside a German music festival had made a video pledging allegiance to the IS group, in the second attack claimed by the extremists in Germany in a week. The 27-year-old assailant wounded 15 people, four of them seriously, near a cafe in the southern city of Ansbach on …