World Briefs

INDONESIA Plantation companies fined for burning huge areas of land since 2009 have failed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties meant to hold them accountable for actions that took a devastating environmental and human toll.

THAILAND The political party seen as the main challenger to military-dominated government in Thailand held its first rally in the capital, as campaigning heats up for the first election since a 2014 military coup. 

MYANMAR A court sentenced two men to death for the killing of a prominent Muslim lawyer who was a close adviser to the country’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

INDIA-PAKISTAN As India considers its response to the suicide car bombing of a paramilitary convoy in the disputed region of Kashmir that killed dozens of soldiers, a retired military commander who oversaw a much-lauded military strike against neighboring Pakistan in 2016 has urged caution.

YEMEN U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths arrived yesterday in the capital, Sanaa, to discuss the “complex situation” in and around the key port city of Hodeida, Yemeni security officials said.

SYRIA Islamic State militants are preventing more than 1,000 civilians from leaving a tiny area still held by the extremist group in a village in eastern Syria, a spokesman for the U.S.-backed Syrian militia fighting the group said yesterday.

SERBIA Thousands of people have rallied in Serbia’s capital for 11th week in a row against populist President Aleksandar Vucic and his government.

ITALY’s populist 5-Star Movement, which is part of the country’s ruling coalition, is asking its supporters to vote online on whether the leader of its junior coalition partner should be prosecuted.

SPAIN will elect its third government in less than four years after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s fragile socialist government acknowledged its support had evaporated and called an early general election.

BRAZIL Eight employees of Brazilian mining giant Vale have been arrested in connection with the investigation into last month’s collapse of a mining dam that killed at least 166 people and left 147 missing in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

VENEZUELA The U.S. military airlifted tons of humanitarian aid to a Colombian town on the Venezuelan border as part of an effort meant to undermine socialist President Nicolas Maduro and back his rival for the leadership of the South American nation.