World briefs

MALAYSIA King Sultan Muhammad V abdicated yesterday in an unexpected move, after just two years on the throne. It marked the first abdication in the nation’s history.

INDIA has deported a second small group of Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar after ordering the expulsion of members of the Myanmar minority group and others who entered the country illegally. 

AFGHANISTAN At least 30 Afghan villagers searching for gold in a riverbed perished yesterday in a flash flood in northeastern Badakhshan province, provincial officials said.

YEMEN Security officials say Yemen’s Shiite rebels and government forces are shelling each other in areas south of Hodeida, straining an already shaky cease-fire in the Red Sea port city.

SYRIA The sudden American decision to pull out its 2,000 troops has forced a reassessment of old alliances and partnerships. The Syrian government, the Kurds, Russia, Iran, Israel and Turkey have all had a hand in the country’s nearly eight-year war — each in a way fighting its own war for its own reasons within Syria.

ROMANIA Eugeniu Iordachescu, a Romanian civil engineer who devised an ingenious way to save 12 churches and many other historic buildings from being destroyed by the country’s former Communist strongman, has died at 89.

UKRAINE The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople yesterday presented a decree of independence to the head of the nascent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, formally severing it from the Russian Orthodox Church.

ALPS Authorities warned yesterday of a high risk of avalanches on the northern side of the Alps, after heavy snowfall in recent days created dangerous conditions in parts of southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland. A 20-year-old skier died in an avalanche on Saturday, German police said.

FRANCE Security forces fired tear gas and flash-balls after a march through picturesque central Paris went from peaceful to provocative as several thousand protesters staged the yellow vest movement’s first action of 2019 to keep up pressure on President Emmanuel Macron. 

US Three men were fatally shot and four injured when a brawl at a popular Los Angeles-area bowling alley and karaoke bar erupted into gunfire that had terrified patrons, some children, running for their lives.

VENEZUELA’s opposition-controlled congress opened its first session of the year, installing a fresh-faced leader who struck a defiant tone and vowed to take up the battle against socialist President Nicolas Maduro.