World Briefs

ZIKA The World Health Organization declares a global emergency over the explosive spread of the Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects in the Americas, calling it an “extraordinary event” that poses a threat to other parts of the world.

CHINA A U.S. meat supplier is disputing a Chinese court’s verdict that its local subsidiary sold expired chicken and beef to McDonald’s, KFC and other fast food restaurants in China. More on p10

CHINA-N.-KOREA Wu Dawei, China’s special representative for Korean Peninsula affairs, arrived yesterday in Pyongyang amid a flurry of diplomacy over the North’s recent nuclear test. More on p12

MALAYSIA A former law minister has filed a lawsuit challenging a decision by the country’s attorney general not to prosecute Prime Minister Najib Razak over a financial scandal that involved more than USD700 million channeled into his private bank accounts.

AUSTRALIA Lawmakers can now breastfeed in the Australian Parliament after the government changed the rules to make politics more family-friendly. But none of the nursing mothers appeared keen to take up the opportunity.

BANGLADESH A special war crimes tribunal in Dhaka sentences two more men to death after finding them guilty of killing, kidnapping and looting during the country’s independence war against Pakistan in 1971.

INDIA’s top court has agreed to re-examine a colonial-era law that makes homosexual acts punishable by up to a decade in prison.

PIRACY A global maritime watchdog says ship hijackings worldwide declined in 2015 from a year earlier, with sea piracy incidents mostly consisting of low-level theft.

USA Ted Cruz, a fiery, conservative Texas senator loathed by his own party’s leaders, sweeps to victory in Iowa’s Republican caucuses, overcoming billionaire Donald Trump and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders were deadlocked in a tight race.

IRELAND’s unemployment rate has fallen to a seven-year low of 8.6 percent as the country — buoyant again after years of gloom and austerity — faces an election. Unemployment has steadily improved since peaking at 15.1 percent in 2012, months before Ireland exited dependence on European and International Monetary Fund loans.

FRANCE High schools say students should be allowed to smoke on school grounds so that they don’t become targets for extremists when they gather for cigarette breaks on the street outside. A leading union of school administrators first made the request five days after the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris. Following a refusal by the Health Ministry, the union last week renewed its call for a loosening of the school smoking ban as long as France remains under a state of emergency.