More than 100 people have been killed by unknown attackers in a village in western Ethiopia, the country’s human rights commission has said.

A nurse at a local clinic told the BBC that more than 30 people had been admitted to the facility, including some in a critical condition.

Some of the victims were shot, while others were stabbed, the nurse added.

Wednesday’s attack in the Benishangul-Gumuz region came a day after a visit by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

In a statement, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said the attack took place in the village of Bekoji, which lies in an area home to multiple ethnic groups.

“More than 100 people have been killed in fires and shooting perpetrated by armed men” during the pre-dawn attack, the commission said.

Beyene Melese, a spokesperson for the state government, blamed what he called “anti-peace elements” for the attack.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Abiy travelled to the region to discuss the recurrence of ethnic-based violence in recent months.

“The desire by enemies to divide Ethiopia along ethnic & religious lines still exists,” the prime minister wrote on Twitter after his visit. “This desire will remain unfulfilled.”

Benishangul-Gumuz has witnessed at least four deadly attacks since September, including a gun attack on a passenger bus in November that killed 34 people.

The violence in the area is not thought to be related to a ground and air offensive launched by the government in the northern Tigray region last month.

Hundreds, or even thousands, of people are thought to have been killed in that conflict, while about 50,000 have fled to neighbouring Sudan.

Over half of Chinese adults overweight

Over half of adults in China, or more than half a billion people, are now overweight, an official report has found.

The figures have risen significantly since 2002, when 29% of adults were overweight.

The country’s rapid economic growth in recent decades has led to major changes to lifestyle, diet and exercise habits.

In October, the Chinese government unveiled plans to tackle rising levels of obesity.

A higher body mass increases the risk for a number of diseases including heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

The issue of obesity has come under renewed focus during the pandemic as studies showed that overweight or obese individuals are more likely to suffer severe complications or death from Covid-19.

The National Health Commission report, released on Wednesday, found that more than 50% of adults are classified as overweight, of whom 16.4% are obese.

The report blamed decreasing levels of physical activity for the country’s expanding waistlines, with less than a quarter of the adult population exercising at least once a week.

A growing appetite for meat and a low consumption of fruit were also identified as factors behind the rise.

Wang Dan, a nutritionist in the city of Harbin, told the AFP news agency that many adults in the country now “exercise too little, are under too much pressure, and have an unhealthy work schedule”.

China is not the only country to have seen an increase in the number of overweight or obese people in recent years.

Earlier this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that levels of obesity across the world had tripled since 1975, including in low and middle-income countries.

Almost 40% of adults were overweight in 2016 and around 13% were obese, according to the WHO’s own estimates.

The tiny Gulf state of Qatar is one of the worst-affected countries, with more than 70% of people overweight or obese.

Coronavirus has reached the Antarctic continent, which had so far been free of Covid-19.

The Chilean army has reported 36 cases at its Bernardo O’Higgins research station on the Antarctic Peninsula.

The 36, 26 of whom are military personnel and 10 maintenance workers, have been evacuated to Chile.

The news comes just days after Chile’s navy confirmed three cases on a ship which had taken supplies and personnel to the research station.

The news means that Covid cases have now been recorded on all seven continents.

The Sargento Aldea arrived at the research station on 27 November and sailed back to Chile on 10 December.

Three of its crew tested positive upon their return to the Chilean naval base in Talcahuano.

Chile’s navy said all of those who had embarked on the trip to the Antarctic had been given PCR tests and all the results had been negative.

The Bernardo O’Higgins research station is one of four permanent bases which Chile has in the Antarctic and is operated by the army.

Chile is the sixth worst-affected country in Latin America with more than 585,000 confirmed coronavirus cases.

The British Antarctic Survey announced in August that it was scaling back its research in the polar south because of coronavirus.

France’s top administrative court has backed privacy campaigners by imposing a ban on police use of drones for covering public protests in Paris.

The Council of State said Paris police prefect Didier Lallement should halt “without delay” drone surveillance of gatherings on public roads.

The ruling comes weeks after MPs backed a controversial security bill that includes police use of drones.

Its main aim is to regulate how people share film or photos of police.

Privacy rights group La Quadrature du Net (LQDN) has argued that the bill’s main measures violate freedom of expression and that drones equipped with cameras cannot keep the peace but track individuals instead.

The Council of State ruled there was “serious doubt over the legality” of drones without a prior text authorising and setting out their use. LQDN said the only way the government could legalise drone surveillance now was in providing “impossible proof” that it was absolutely necessary to maintain law and order.

The decision is the second setback in months for Parisian authorities’ drone plans. In May, the same court ruled that drones could not be used in the capital to track people in breach of France’s strict lockdown rules.

Under article 22 of the security bill currently going through parliament, security forces would be allowed to send images filmed by drone or helicopter to command teams and retain those images for 30 days or more as part of a possible police inquiry.

Protests broke out after the bill passed its first reading in the National Assembly, with most of the anger directed at article 24, which makes it a criminal offence to publish images of on-duty police officers with the intent to harm their “physical or psychological integrity

Nine people have been killed after an oxygen ventilator exploded at a hospital treating coronavirus patients in southern Turkey, officials say.

The blast caused a fire in the intensive care unit of the private Sanko University Hospital in Gaziantep, the local governor’s office said.

At least one of the patients died while being transferred to another hospital.

Turkey has recorded nearly two million coronavirus cases and 17,610 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

No injuries were reported in relation to the fire, which occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning and was quickly put out.

The victims were aged between 56 and 85, the hospital said in a statement.

An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the explosion.

Several other patients being treated at the same ward were transferred to receive treatment at nearby hospitals, the Gaziantep governor’s office said.

“Authorities have taken the necessary measures,” the statement said, while offering condolences to the families of the victims.

Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin tweeted to wish “urgent healing to the wounded”, adding: “Get well soon, Gaziantep.”

Last month, a fire at a hospital in Romania killed 10 patients receiving treatment for Covid-19. Reports suggested that a medical appliance caught fire, igniting a nearby oxygen cylinder.

In October, more than 150 patients at a makeshift coronavirus hospital in the Russian region of Chelyabinsk had to be evacuated when an explosion in an “oxygen booth” caused a fire, Russia’s emergencies ministry said

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera has been fined $3,500 (£2,588) for breaching coronavirus rules by posing for a selfie with no facemask on.

Mr Piñera apologised after the photo of him with a woman – also without a mask – went viral earlier this month.

The president admitted he should have worn a mask when the woman requested a photo on a beach near his home in the town of Cachagua.

Chile has strict rules about wearing masks in public.

Violations of the mask law are punishable with penalties that include fines and even jail terms.

Coronavirus cases are on the rise in Chile, which has seen among the highest number of cases and deaths related to the disease in Latin America.

The country has recorded 581,135 infections and 16,051 deaths to date, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University in the US.