World Briefs

NEW ZEALAND A court hearing in New Zealand on whether to extradite Kim Dotcom and three others who helped run the website Megaupload to the United States ends after nine weeks of arguments

MYANMAR A court in Myanmar has declined to drop a charge against a young woman accused of poking fun at Myanmar’s army chief on Facebook, highlighting the challenges faced by the former dictatorship as it grapples with a social media explosion and other newfound freedoms of expression.

GERMAN prosecutors say they have widened their investigation of Volkswagen to include suspicion of tax evasion after revelations that some of its cars were emitting more carbon dioxide than officially reported.
Liberia  A teenage boy has died of Ebola in Liberia, a health official said Tuesday, the first fatality since July in one of the three West African countries hit hardest by the worst ever outbreak of the disease.

SWEDEN The Swedish government has proposed tough measures to stem the flow of asylum-seekers into the country, including granting temporary residence permits to refugees who earlier were eligible for permanent residency.

VATICAN CITY  A Vatican tribunal yesterday rejected a journalist’s request to dismiss charges against him for publishing confidential documents as a trial opened in the Holy See’s latest leaks scandal. Journalists Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi are accused of having published books about Vatican waste, greed and mismanagement that were based in part on confidential Holy See documents. Alongside them in the courtroom yesterday were three people, including a high-ranking Vatican monsignor, accused of leaking them the information.

USA A nonprofit founded to combat obesity says the USD1.5 million it received from Coke has no influence on its work. But emails obtained by The Associated Press show the world’s largest beverage maker was instrumental in shaping the Global Energy Balance Network, which is led by a professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Coke helped pick the group’s leaders, edited its mission statement and suggested articles and videos for its website.