LONDON (Reuters) -- Thousands of British prison officers walked out of their jobs on Friday, gathering outside jails to protest against what their union called unprecedented levels of violence and the failure of the government to make prisons safe.
The government called on them to return to work, describing the protest as unlawful and the Prisons Officers' Association (POA) union said it had been threatened with court action.
The state of prisons in Britain has made headlines in recent years. Inspectors warned on Thursday that inmates of Bedford jail in central England did not follow rules and were using drugs. Last month, the government took over the running of another prison for similar reasons.
Prisons Minister Rory Stewart said officers should return to their duty stations in line with their obligations to the law and the prison service.
"These prison officers are putting their fellow staff and inmates at risk," he said in a statement.

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MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- Russia is ready to consider a request by British investigators to come and interrogate the two men accused of poisoning a former spy, the Kremlin said Friday.
Britain charged Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov last week with trying to kill double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, with the Soviet-designed nerve agent Novichok. The Skripals survived the March 4 attack in Salisbury, but a local resident later died after apparently having contact with the poison.
Petrov and Boshirov appeared Thursday on the state-funded RT channel, saying they visited Salisbury as tourists and had nothing to do with the poisoning. They denied the British claim that they were Russian military intelligence officers, saying they work in the nutritional supplements business.
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Friday that Russian authorities will consider Britain's request to interrogate them if it comes. He added that Britain has stonewalled repeated Russian offers to conduct a joint inquiry.
He said that "from the very beginning, Russia has emphasized its desire to cooperate to clarify the circumstances of what happened in Salisbury and track down the culprits," but "the British side has strongly rejected such cooperation."
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SEOUL (AFP) -- South Korea launched its first ever missile-capable attack submarine on Friday, despite a recent diplomatic thaw with the nuclear-armed North.
The $700 million, 3,000-tonne Dosan Ahn Chang-ho submarine is capable of firing both cruise and ballistic missiles and the first of three planned diesel-electric boats to go into service in the next five years.
It represented a "leap forward in the country's" defense industry, President Moon Jae-in told a launch ceremony at the Daewoo shipyard where it was designed and built.
"Peace through power is the unwavering security strategy of this government."
Moon will head to Pyongyang next week for a third summit with the North's leader Kim Jong Un, as U.S.-led efforts to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons have stalled.
"We have set off on a grand journey toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," Moon said. "But peace is not given gratuitously," he added.
 
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KUALA LAMPUR (AP) -- Malaysia's prime minister-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim said on Friday that it was time for him to return as a lawmaker, but reiterated his full support for the government led by his former foe-turned-ally Mahathir Mohamad.
Anwar and Mahathir put aside their 20-year-old political feud to help their alliance win a historic national vote in May that led to the first change of power since independence from Britain in 1957.
Anwar, who was convicted in 2015 for sodomy, could not take part in the elections but their four-party alliance had agreed that Mahathir would be prime minister and hand over the reins to Anwar. Anwar, 70, was freed and pardoned by the king shortly after the polls.
"The understanding ... is that immediately after the pardon, I should enter the race," Anwar told The Associated Press on Friday. "I waited four months and I think it is also important for me to start connecting" with lawmakers and focus on parliamentary reforms.
Mahathir "will continue leading the nation, I will give full support," he added.
 
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MADRID (AP) -- Spanish Prime Minister Pablo Sanchez published his doctoral thesis online Friday to deflect any doubts over its existence and refute allegations of plagiarism raised by media and the political opposition.
A day earlier Sanchez, a Socialist, wrote on Facebook that he considered the plagiarism allegations a "personal attack" by opposition parties in the absence of a "solid political project."
He also threatened to take legal action against ABC newspaper and other media that published stories arguing that passages of his "Spain's Economic Diplomacy, 2010-2012" dissertation had been copied from other researchers' works.
Doctored or exaggerated resumes have backfired in Spanish politics in the past, but academic misdeeds uncovered by the media have led to political turmoil and a string of high-profile resignations in recent months.

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TOKYO (Reuters) -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday repeated Japan's stance that a row over islands seized by Russian troops in the final days of World War II must be settled before a peace treaty can be signed to formally end hostilities between their countries.
President Vladimir Putin appeared to catch Abe off guard when he said at a regional forum in Vladivostok on Wednesday that the two countries should sign a peace treaty by the end of this year - without preconditions.