A private Russian military group has reportedly beat off competition from American rivals to a Mozambique government contract, that will see troops take on militant Islamist groups in the country.

According to a report in The Times, the Wagner Group, a privately organisation that has been reportedly been involved in conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, saw off competition from an operation owned by Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, a US private security company that has been in Iraq.

At least 200 soldiers, including highly trained elite troops, and three attack helicopters are thought to be in Mozambique as part of operations.

An 18-year-old protestor has been shot in the chest by Hong Kong’s security forces after violent protests in the city marked 70 years of Communist party rule in China.

As a military parade took place in Beijing, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Hong Kong in one of the largest days of protest so far. Chinese flags were burnt and calls for independence were heard throughout the city, as protestors clashed with police.

New Zealand’s Maori groups are expected to hold protests this week, as the UK stopped short of apologising for the killing of local tribesman by British Captain James Cook in 1769.

Commemorations are being planned this week to mark Cook’s arrival in the country, and though the British government is set to express regret over the killings, it is reported that it will not apologise to the Maori people.

British high commissioner to New Zealand, Laura Clarke is expected to “acknowledge the pain of those first encounters” between Cook the and Maori, the British high commission said in a statement, as well as acknowledge the pain “does not diminish over time”.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan warned of a “nightmare scenario” with India as tensions continue between the nuclear-armed neighbours continue over Kashmir.

“My main reason for coming here was to meet world leaders at the UN and speak about this,” Khan told journalists at the general assembly in New York. “We are heading for a potential disaster of proportions that no one here realises... It is the only time since the Cuban crisis that two nuclear-armed countries are coming face to face. We did come to face to face in February.”

Khan went on to call his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi a “fascist” as he went on to criticise the lockdown in Kashmir.

A tanker exploded in Bamako, the capital of Mali, has killed six people and badly wounded 46 others on Tuesday. 

Reuters notes that there have been no immediate connections made to Islamist groups who frequently carry out violent attacks in the north and the center of Mali.

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