Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh denied killing his wife and son but admitted lying to investigators about when he last saw them alive as he took the stand in his own defense on Feb 23 .

Murdaugh, 54, is charged with murder in the fatal shootings of his wife, Maggie, 52, and their 22-year-old son, Paul, who were killed near kennels on their property on June 7, 2021. In his testimony, Murdaugh continued to staunchly deny any role in the killings.

Amnesty International on Feb 23 reiterated its urgent call for the Philippine authorities to immediately drop the fabricated charges against former Senator Leila de Lima, and ensure her immediate and unconditional release ahead of her sixth year in arbitrary detention.

The former senator has always been an outspoken critic of Duterte and his state-sanctioned crackdown on illegal drugs that rights groups say left thousands of, mostly poor, young men dead, the report said.

Since April 2022, several key witnesses have recanted their testimonies against de Lima, saying they were coerced and threatened by former government officials to fabricate allegations against her. These witnesses include Rafael Ragos, a former acting chief of the Bureau of Corrections, who said he was forced to “manufacture lies” by former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre and other senior officials, Amnesty International said.

Sri Lanka's investment promotion body has approved two renewable energy projects of India's Adani group to be set up in the north and eastern regions of the island nation at a total investment of USD 442 million.

The wind power plant in Mannar will operate at a capacity of 250 MW (megawatt) while the wind power plant in Pooneryn will operate at a capacity of 100 MW.

The two wind power plants of 350 MW are scheduled to be commissioned in two years and they will be added to the national grid by 2025. The new project will generate 1500-2000 new employment opportunities.

President Joe Biden on  feb 23 announced that the US is nominating Ajay Banga to lead the World Bank, saying the Indian-American business leader is uniquely equipped to lead the global institution at "this critical moment in history."

"If confirmed by the World Bank Board of Directors, Banga would be the first-ever Indian-American and Sikh-American to head either of the two top international financial institutions: International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Banga, 63, currently serves as Vice Chairman at General Atlantic.

Previously, he was President and CEO of Mastercard, leading the company through a strategic, technological and cultural transformation. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2016.

Israel's foreign minister said that the Gulf Arab state of Oman has decided to allow Israeli planes to fly through its airspace. The announcement was another sign of closer ties between Israel and some Arab countries.

The move comes on the heels last year of a similar step by Saudi Arabia, and would shorten the flying distance between Israel and Asia.

Oman and Israel have had secretive ties for years, which were spotlighted in 2018 when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a surprise visit to the country, the first trip of its kind in over 20 years.

Still, Oman was not among the four countries to sign normalization deals with Israel in 2020 under U.S-brokered agreements known as the Abraham Accords. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, as well as Morocco and Sudan, all agreed to normalize ties with Israel as part of the deals.

The sultanate has long had a low-key role in fostering negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. Oman, which sits on the southeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, with Saudi Arabia to its north and Iran to its east, also has a long record of being a quiet broker in the region, opting to stay on the sidelines of the rivalry between the two regional powerhouses.

Oman has also served as a mediator between the United States and Israel’s arch-rival Iran. Oman hosted the secret talks that eventually led to the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement and has facilitated the release of prisoners and hostages held by armed groups.

Earlier this week, Oman welcomed Syrian President Bashar Assad on his first visit outside Syria since the earthquake there earlier this month.

Burkina Faso's revolutionary leader, Thomas Sankara, was reburied on Feb 23 , eight years after his body was exhumed as part of an investigation.

Sankara's body, and those of the 12 people who died with him, were reburied at the site of his assassination, which has since become a memorial for Sankara featuring a life-size statue of the former leader pumping his fist in the air.

Sankara and the others were gunned down in the capital, Ouagadougou, during a 1987 coup and buried hastily, their bodies only allowed to be dug up in 2015, after the ousting of former President Blaise Compaore.

Sankara, a charismatic Marxist leader with a reputation as "Africa’s Che Guevara," came to power in 1983 at the age of 33 after he and Compaore led a leftist coup that overthrew a moderate military faction. But in 1987, Compaore turned on his former friend in a coup in which he seized power and then ruled the country for 30 years.

Last year, Compaore, who now lives in Ivory Coast, was tried in absentia and convicted of complicity in their murders. A Burkina Faso military tribunal sentenced him to life imprisonment. Compaore’s right-hand man, Gilbert Diendere, and former spy chief Tousma Yacinthe Kafando were also given life sentences. Eight other people were found guilty of a range of charges including giving false testimonies and complicity in undermining state security.

The West African nation has been struggling with a jihadi insurgency linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group that has killed thousands and displaced nearly 2 million people and sowed division among the population leading to two coups last year. The current junta leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traore, has been likened by some to Sankara, as an anti-imperialist pan-African leader, and is using the reburial to increase support, analysts say.

The Punjab Vigilance Bureau has arrested AAP's Bathinda (Rural) MLA Amit Rattan Kotfatta on the alleged charges of graft. He is the second politician of the ruling party in the state to be arrested as earlier the then Health Minister Vijay Singla was arrested and recently, cabinet minister Fauja Singh Sarari was dropped from the cabinet after allegations of corruption against him.

Amit Rattan, an AAP MLA from Bathinda (Rural) was arrested by the Vigilance Bureau on  Feb 23 morning from near Karnal in Haryana in a bribery case complaint lodged against him by husband of Ghudda village sarpanch.

On February 16 Rashim Garg a close aid of the MLA was arrested from the Circuit House of Bathinda by the bureau on charges of taking Rs 4 lakh  and the bureau was under pressure as it was alleged that it (VB) was trying to save the legislator in the case. The bribe of Rs 5 lakh was allegedly demanded from the sarpanch of Ghudda village in lieu of availing development funds of Rs 25 lakh.

After conducting searches for more than 35 hours at over 2 dozen locations of Chief Engineer Virendra Kumar Ram all over the Country, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths finally arrested him late in the night on Feb 22  in a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in implementation of some schemes.

According to ED sources, the Chief Engineer has amassed properties, both movable and immovable, to over 100 crore.