World briefs

CHINA Attention is turning to a possible meeting of President Donald Trump with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a summit in Japan later this month as the next step in the vexing trade standoff between the two biggest economies. 

THAILAND’s junta leader was officially proclaimed prime minister yesterday after the king endorsed Parliament’s vote for him to serve another term.

SOUTH KOREA Lee Hee-ho, a feminist activist who fought for democracy against dictatorships alongside her husband and future President Kim Dae-jung, has died. She was 97.

NORTH KOREA A human rights group said yesterday it has identified hundreds of spots where witnesses claim North Korea carried out public executions and extrajudicial state killings as part of an arbitrary and aggressive use of the death penalty that is meant to intimidate its citizens. 

NEW ZEALAND A court yesterday stopped a man accused of killing a woman in Shanghai a decade ago from being extradited to China, at least for now, due to concerns he could be tortured. 

PAKISTAN A court handed over the country’s former president to a national anti-graft body yesterday for questions regarding a multi-million dollar money laundering case. Asif Ali Zardari will be held for ten days pending investigation on corruption charges.

IRAN has revoked the press accreditation for The New York Times’ correspondent based in Tehran without explanation, the newspaper reported yesterday. The revocation comes amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran stemming from President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers a year ago.

BOTSWANA became the latest country to decriminalize gay sex yesterday in a landmark case for Africa when the High Court rejected as unconstitutional sections of the penal code punishing same-sex relations with up to seven years in prison.

Greece A boat carrying dozens of migrants to a Greek island from the nearby Turkish coast capsized yesterday, leaving seven people dead, including two children. 

VATICAN CITY The Vatican issued an official document rejecting the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisting on the sexual “complementarity” of men and women to make babies.