India's top court restored life prison sentences for 11 Hindu men who raped a Muslim woman during deadly religious rioting two decades ago and asked the convicts to surrender to the authorities within two weeks. The Hindu men were convicted in 2008 of rape and murder. They were released in 2022 after serving 14 years in prison. The victim, who is now in her 40s, was pregnant when she was brutally gang-raped in 2002 in western Gujarat state during communal rioting that was some of India's worst religious violence with over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, killed.

The men were eligible for remission of their sentence under a policy that was in place at the time of their convictions. At the time of their release, officials in Gujarat had said the convicts were granted remission because they had completed over 14 years in jail. A revised policy adopted in 2014 by the federal government prohibits remission release for those convicted of certain crimes, including rape and murder.

U.S. and Chinese military officers resumed talks that were frozen after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in the summer of 2022, a development U.S. officials have said is key to keeping the growing competition between the two great powers from turning into direct conflict. During the deputy-level talks at the Pentagon, the two parties discussed setting future meetings between their military officers, including potentially scheduling a future meeting between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and newly appointed Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun.

Austin is currently hospitalised due to complications from prostate cancer treatment. He had not been scheduled to attend the meeting. Dong is a former naval commander who was appointed in late December after his predecessor, Li Shangfu, was removed from office. Li was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 for buying Russian weapons. The U.S. has not lifted the sanctions. No U.S. defence secretary has visited China since Jim Mattis visited in 2018.

Far-right Dutch election winner Geert Wilders made a key concession to potential coalition partners, announcing that he's withdrawing legislation that he proposed in 2018 that calls for a ban on mosques and the Quran. The move came a day before talks to form the next government were set to resume following the November election. The abandonment of the bill could be critical in gaining the trust and support of three more mainstream parties that Wilders wants to co-opt into a coalition along with his Party for Freedom, known by its Dutch acronym PVV.

One of those parties' leaders, Pieter Omtzigt of the reformist New Social Contract, has expressed fears that some of Wilders' policies breach the Dutch Constitution that enshrines liberties, including the freedom of religion. The PVV won the highest 37 seats in the 150-seat lower house of the Dutch parliament in the Nov. 22 general election.

A group of armed, masked men in Ecuador launched an audacious attack on a television station during a live broadcast and so revealed the country's spiralling violence in the wake of an apparent recent prison escape. The imprisoned leader of a drug gang mysteriously vanished from his cell in the coastal city of Guayaquil on Sunday, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency.

On Tuesday, thousands of viewers tuned in to TC Television watched live as the men threatened presenters and studio hands with firearms and explosives that appeared to be sticks of dynamite. Sounds resembling shots were audible, as well as pleas and moans of pain. Police neutralised the scene and arrested 13 people. Ecuador's attorney general's office said Tuesday they will be charged with terrorism, facing up to 13 years imprisonment. The violence comes after Los Choneros gang leader Adolfo Macías, alias "Fito," made his apparent escape.