World briefs

CHINA Former Interpol President Meng Hongwei confessed to accepting more than USD2 million in bribes and expressed regret for his crime, a Chinese court said yesterday. 

NORTH KOREA Leader Kim Jong Un says his country has taken “many positive measures” over the past year, but hasn’t received an “active response from the relevant party,” an apparent reference to the United States. 

LEBANON Authorities are making their most aggressive campaign yet for Syrian refugees to return home and are taking action to ensure they can’t put down roots.

EGYPT Officials say 11 tourists are safe after their hot air balloon drifted away, forcing them to land in the country’s southern desert. The tourists involve five Indians, four Chinese, a British and an Egyptian

RUSSIA Officials have launched an operation to release nearly 100 illegally captured whales whose confinement in Russia’s far east has become a rallying cry for environmentalists.

TURKEY A court has sentenced 128 people accused of being among the ringleaders of the failed military coup in 2016, to life terms in prison, according to Turkish media.

HUNGARY A court has extended the prison sentences of four human traffickers convicted last year for their roles in a 2015 incident in which 71 migrants suffocated in the back of a refrigerated truck found on a highway in Austria.

ITALY Firefighters say three people were killed by an explosion in an apartment building that appears to have been caused by a gas leak. The explosion in the northeastern city of Gorizia near the Slovenian border completely leveled the building, leaving just outside walls standing on three sides

UK A British court ruled yesterday that the U.K. government acted unlawfully in selling weapons to Saudi Arabia that were used in the Yemen war, though it did not order a halt to the exports.

WIKILEAKS A Swedish prosecutor won’t appeal a decision not to detain WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is now jailed in Britain and suspected of rape in Sweden. Deputy Chief Prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson said yesterday she planned to carry out “certain supplementary questioning,” but didn’t elaborate.