BBC news with Stewart Macintosh.

The Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram has released a video purporting to show some of the school girls it abducted from the northern town of Chibok in 2014.The video features a masked armed man taunting the government speaking with about50 women behind him. The Nigerian government said it was doing everything possible to secure the release of the girls.

The authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo say at least 36 civilians have been massacred by rebels near the border with Uganda. The governor of north Kivu province said the victims were tied up and hacked to death in their homes and fields outside the town of Beni.

A criminal gang in Mexico has dropped three ice boxes with a decapitated head in each near a government building in the capital of Guerrero state,three bodies were found in streets nearby, Guerrero has been plagued by years of drug related violence.

Kurdish forces in northern Iraq say they have captured nine villages from Islamic State militants southeast of the city of Mosul. This offensive comes ahead of what expected to be a major battle for Mosul, the last big Iraqi city still held by IS.

On their independence day, Pakistani border troops gave sweets to their Indian counterparts at one border crossing point while soldiers from the two sides exchange fire elsewhere on the frontier. The two governments also traded angry accusations each country accusing the other of what they called unprovoked firing along the line dividing disputed Kashmir.

On day nine of the Rio Olympics, Great Britain won three golds in the space of an hour to move above China into second place in the medal table behind the United States, the gymnast Max Whitlock adds two historic golds in both the floor and the pommel horse, the first time ever that Britain has won a medal in men’s gymnastics. BBC news.