Fire kills at least 25 at religious school in Malaysia

A school official said unidentified gunmen seized more than 100 children from a school in Kaduna, a provincial capital in northwest Nigeria.

Tea estates in Malaysia's Cameron Highlands are facing a bleak future as coronavirus lockdowns cause labour shortages, decimate the vital tourism industry, and sap demand.

When the coronavirus forced circuses in Mexico to close last year, one family converted a warehouse in the suburbs of Mexico-City into a gym to keep practicing their performances and to offer acrobatics lessons to local children.

Malaysian police have hit on a novel way to dispose of more than 1,000 bitcoin-mining machines seized in raids -- crushing the devices using a steamroller. Authorities on Borneo island discovered the machines, worth an estimated 5.3 million ringgit ($1.25 million), in crackdowns between February and April, and say they were powered using stolen electricity.

As concern grows internationally about an expected clampdown by the Taliban on women's rights, students at one girls’ school are "happy" to be returning. Schools in Herat faced long closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing security concerns over Taliban advances before insurgents finally captured the city on August 12. The school's director says it reopened on Monday and students are attending class, with more of the girls wearing the hijab and choosing conservative dress than before the Taliban takeover.

The Taliban say they will not stop girls from going to school, but experts say it is hard to trust them. For young girls, who have just started school and had never seen the Taliban, it is a difficult situation.

Over 131,000 children in Mexico have lost a mother, father or both to the coronavirus pandemic, according to The Lancet medical journal. The grief and anxiety make returning to school a challenge for bereaved families.

The attack on a remote village in the northwest of the country comes days after bandits released 90 pupils they had held captive. Police are searching for the perpetrators of the latest crime.

As India cautiously reopens schools months after a devastating coronavirus surge, officials say the benefits of education now outweighs the risk to public health.

Many Yemini school children have only ever known makeshift schooling. Classes take place wherever they can, on roofs, in bombed out buildings and on the streets. As a new school year rolls around, the students' simple hope of a ‘real school’ remains a distant reality in the war-torn city of Taez. With 600,000 people under government control but besieged by the Huthi rebels since 2015, Taez is one of Yemen's most troubled cities, and has been repeatedly bombed by insurgents.

Haiti is struggling to send children back to class amid the devastation of the earthquake last month that killed more than 2,200 people and destroyed tens of thousands of buildings, including many schools.

In Ghana, a few schools have taken the bold step of introducing uniforms made of vibrant printed African fabric! Perhaps it's time to follow their lead in doing away with the traditional post-colonial school uniform?