World briefs

THAILAND The trial of a Thai billionaire construction tycoon charged with poaching an endangered black panther and other animals in a wildlife sanctuary began yesterday after months of delay.

AUSTRALIA A wildfire stoked by heatwave conditions in northeast Australia has destroyed at least four homes, forced the evacuation of hundreds of others and razed 20,000 hectares of farmland and woodland, authorities said yesterday.

SRI LANKA Lawmakers supporting disputed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa boycotted Parliament for a second day yesterday, accusing the speaker of bias during a political crisis that has engulfed the island nation for nearly a month.

AFGHANISTAN A roadside bomb killed three American soldiers in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, the U.S. military said, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in the last 17 months.

SYRIA Workers have exhumed more than 500 bodies from one of the largest mass graves near the northern city of Raqqa, once the capital of the Islamic State group’s self-styled caliphate, and are still uncovering remains, a local official said yesterday. 

RUSSIA The European Court of Human Rights issued a fresh rebuke to the Kremlin yesterday, ruling that Russia’s continued ban on LGBT rallies is discriminatory and represents a violation of human rights.

GREECE Authorities say the dismembered bodies of three people, believed to be immigrants who were hit by a train overnight, have been found on rail tracks near the border with Turkey.

GERMANY A court yesterday convicted the suspect in last year’s attack on the Borussia Dortmund soccer team’s bus of attempted murder and sentenced him to 14 years in prison.

FRANCE An employee of the French Senate is in custody on suspicion of spying for North Korea. A judicial official says that the man was detained in an investigation open since March into “collecting and delivering information to a foreign power susceptible to harming fundamental interests of the nation.”

US President Donald Trump is strongly defending the U.S. use of tear gas at the Mexican border to repel a crowd of migrants that included angry rock-throwers but also barefoot, crying children.

BRAZIL Scientists warn that Brazil’s president-elect could push the Amazon rainforest past its tipping point — with severe consequences for global climate and rainfall.