Briefly

ISRAEL

PM's rival seeks extension in talks

Benny Gantz, leader of Israel's Blue and White Party, says he has asked the country's president for a two-week extension as he tries to form a coalition government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Last month Gantz, Netanyahu's chief rival in three elections over the past year, was given the task by Israel's president of forming a new government after winning the backing of a narrow majority of members of the newly elected parliament. But in an abrupt about-face, Gantz later said he would seek to form an "emergency" government with Netanyahu's Likud party to confront the growing coronavirus crisis. Gantz faces a deadline on Monday for reaching a deal. A failure to reach a deal could plunge the country into a fourth consecutive election.

BANGLADESH

Killer of founding leader executed

Bangladesh has executed Abdul Majed, a former military captain, less than a week after he was arrested after nearly 25 years on the run over the assassination of the country's founding leader, a minister said on Sunday. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, father of current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was killed along with most of his family in a military coup on August 15, 1975. Majed is believed to have fled to India in 1996. In 1998 Majed was sentenced in his absence to death with a dozen other army officers over the murders. Counterterrorism police officers arrested Majed last Tuesday as he rode a rickshaw in the capital early in the morning. Bangladesh prison authorities executed Majed within days after the country's president rejected his plea for mercy.

AFGHANISTAN

Taliban to release 20 government prisoners

The Taliban will release 20 Afghan government prisoners it was holding, a spokesman of the group said, the first handover since the beginning of a peace process. "Today 20 prisoners of the Kabul administration will be released by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and handed over to (the International Committee of the Red Cross) in Kandahar," the spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, said on social media on Sunday. Since Wednesday, the Afghan government has released 300 Taliban prisoners as part of a swap after a pact in February between the United States and the Taliban that offers the best chance yet of ending the 18-year US military involvement in Afghanistan.

Agencies