Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Swedish ‘Mohammad’ cartoonist Lars Vilks killed in car crash

Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who stirred worldwide controversy in 2007 with drawings depicting the Prophet Mohammad with the body of a dog, was killed in a car crash near the southern town of Markaryd on Sunday, police said. Vilks, 75, who had been living under police protection since the drawings were published, was travelling in a police vehicle which collided with a truck. Two police officers were also killed.

Taiwan reports surge in Chinese aircraft in defence zone

Taiwan’s air force scrambled again on Monday to warn away 52 Chinese aircraft that entered its air defence zone, Taiwan’s defence ministry said, the largest number to date reported by Taipei and the fourth straight day of Chinese incursions. Chinese-claimed Taiwan has complained for a year or more of repeated missions by China’s air force near the democratically governed island, often in the southwestern part of its air defence zone close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands.

Lava flow thickens on La Palma after volcanic crater collapses

A river of red-hot lava gushing from the Cumbre Vieja volcano on Spain’s La Palma thickened on Monday, after the north side of the crater collapsed the previous night causing spectacular explosions, but authorities ruled out further evacuations. Despite the heightened activity, the lava appeared to be following a similar trajectory to previous flows and avoiding areas that have so far been spared, Canary Islands’ regional president Angel Victor Torres said.

Displaced Afghans plead for aid as desperation grows

In a public park in the Afghan capital Kabul, Nor Agha Nori is one of hundreds of people sleeping in makeshift tents, as the country suffers a growing humanitarian crisis. Originally from the northern Takhar province, Nori’s family of seven are among hundreds of thousands of people, the majority children, displaced in recent months as the insurgent Taliban triumphed over Western-backed government forces in August.

Protests get harder for Afghan women amid risks and red tape

Women in Afghanistan who object to what the Taliban have said and done since returning to power are finding it harder to protest, now that impromptu demonstrations have been banned and previous rallies were broken up by gunfire and beatings. Resistance within families and concerns over sharing information over social media that could identify people involved are also acting as deterrents, according to six female protesters Reuters spoke to across the country.

Two Koreas reopen hotlines as North urges South to mend ties

The two Koreas on Monday restored their hotlines that the North severed months ago, with Pyongyang urging Seoul to step up efforts to improve relations after criticising what it called double standards over weapons development. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressed his willingness https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/nkoreas-kim-expresses-willingness-restore-inter-korean-hotline-kcna-2021-09-29 last week to reactivate the hotlines, which North Korea cut off in early August https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/nkorea-says-us-skorea-face-security-threats-with-military-drills-2021-08-09 in protest against joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises, just days after reopening them for the first time in a year.

Britain sends military to solve fuel crisis as driver shortage persists

British military personnel in combat fatigues arrived on Monday at a BP storage depot after the government ordered the army to help deliver fuel to tackle an acute shortage of truckers, a Reuters reporter said. Britain’s supply chains for everything from pork, petrol and poultry to medicines and milk have been strained to breaking point by shortages of labour in the wake of the Brexit and COVID crises.

Two Americans win Medicine Nobel Prize for sensory findings

American scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian won the 2021 Nobel Prize for Medicine on Monday for discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch which the award-giving body said could pave the way for new pain-killers. Their findings “have allowed us to understand how heat, cold and mechanical force can initiate the nerve impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world around us,” the Nobel Assembly at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said.

Japan’s new PM takes office, set to make surprise call for election

Japan’s new prime minister, Fumio Kishida, exchanged fist bumps with lawmakers after he was formally elected by parliament on Monday, as public broadcaster NHK said he was set to dissolve the body next week and call an election on Oct. 31. Earlier in the day, Kishida, a 64-year-old former foreign minister with an image as a consensus builder, unveiled a cabinet line-up dominated by allies of former prime minister Shinzo Abe and ex-finance minister Taro Aso.

Pandora Papers: Document dump allegedly links world leaders to secret wealth

A massive leak of financial documents was published by several major news organizations on Sunday that allegedly tie world leaders to secret stores of wealth, including King Abdullah of Jordan, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis and associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The dump of more than 11.9 million records, amounting to about 2.94 terabytes of data, came five years after the leak known as the “Panama Papers” exposed how money was hidden by the wealthy in ways that law enforcement agencies could not detect.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)