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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Dozens of people have died in four days of gang battles in a violent neighborhood of Haiti's capital, the latest eruption of bloodshed in a wave of increasing violence sweeping the country, local officials said Tuesday. Jean Hislain Frederick, deputy mayor in Cite Soleil district of Port-au-Prince, said that the fighting erupted Friday in a clash between members of two rival gangs and that at least 50 people had died and more than 50 were wounded. The violence began just a day after the first anniversary of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Since Moïse was killed, violence has soared in Haiti as gangs battle over territory, and the government has struggled to crack down. The aid group Doctors Without Borders said that thousands of people were trapped...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- The president of Sri Lanka fled the country early Wednesday, days after protesters stormed his home and office and the official residence of his prime minister amid a three-month economic crisis that triggered severe shortages of food and fuel. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his wife and two bodyguards left aboard a Sri Lankan Air Force plane bound for the city of Male, the capital of the Maldives, according to an immigration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. Rajapaksa had agreed to step down under pressure. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he would leave once a new government was in place. Lawmakers agreed to elect a new president next week but struggled Tuesday to decide on the makeup of a new gov...

Tunisia has seen a marked shift in attitudes towards women political leaders since Najla Bouden became the first female prime minister in the Arab world. However, this doesn't mean that life has dramatically improved for Tunisia's women, writes BBC News Arabic's Jessie Williams. Bochra Belhaj Hmida has spent her whole life fighting for both gender equality and democracy in Tunisia - "one of which cannot be achieved without the other," she says. After the revolution in 2011 - which saw her take part in the mass demonstrations that led to autocrat President Ben Ali being ousted - Tunisia passed a gender parity law. It requires political parties to have an equal number of men and women on their list of candidates to serve in parliament after elections. It ...

A woman in Texas has argued that her unborn baby should count as a passenger after she was fined for driving in a high-occupancy lane. Brandy Bottone, 32, was given the $275 (£231) ticket on 29 June after she was stopped by police in the US state. She then argued that, given the overturning of the constitutional right to an abortion by the Supreme Court, her unborn child counted as a person. Ms Bottone, who is 34 weeks pregnant, plans to contest the fine in court. She said the incident took place after she used the high-occupancy lane - which requires at least two passengers - while in a hurry to collect her six-year-old son. As she exited the lane, she was stopped by police. Ms Bottone told the Dallas Morning News that, when asked whether there were any other passengers in ...

The congressional committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol is set to resume its hearing schedule this week, with an afternoon session on the violent extremist groups that participated in the Capitol breach. It will be the seventh hearing conducted this year, and the first since the "emergency" session in which former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson provided blockbuster testimony about Donald Trump's activities on the day of the Capitol attack. Here's a look at where things stand at the moment - and what might be in store. The extremists who led the charge The 6 January hearings up to this point have focused considerable attention on how the committee believes Donald Trump and his advisers created a political climate after ...

Russian natural gas supplies to Germany via the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1 have been halted for 10 days for annual maintenance work. But German Economy Minister Robert Habeck warned that EU countries had to be prepared in case gas shipments did not resume. He has accused the Kremlin of using gas "as a weapon" in response to EU sanctions over the war in Ukraine. Mr Habeck admitted Germany had become too dependent on Russian gas. He described that as "a grave political mistake as we can see today, which we are trying to remedy as quickly as we possibly can". He said two floating terminals for deliveries of liquefied natural gas (LNG) would be ready by the end of the year. In mid-June Russia's state gas firm Gazpro...