World Briefs

CHINA Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma, who helped launch China’s online retailing boom, stepped down as chairman of the world’s biggest e-commerce company yesterday at a time when its fast-changing industry faces uncertainty amid a U.S.-Chinese tariff war.

THAILAND A member of Thailand’s Cabinet said that an Australian newspaper report that he was imprisoned there for four years on a drug smuggling conviction was concocted by his political enemies, and he has no plans to resign.

NORTH KOREA launched two projectiles toward the sea yesterday, South Korea’s military said, hours after the North offered to resume nuclear diplomacy with the United States but warned its dealings with Washington may end without new U.S. proposals.

INDIA-NEPAL The leaders of India and Nepal inaugurated South Asia’s first cross country oil pipeline yesterday, allowing the Himalayan nation of Nepal to receive an uninterrupted supply of oil from its large southern neighbor.

UKRAINE’s parliament has adopted a bill spelling out procedures for a presidential impeachment.

AFGHANISTAN President Donald Trump’s sudden halt to U.S.-Taliban talks looks like a gift to the beleaguered Afghan president, who has insisted on holding a key election in less than three weeks’ time despite widespread expectations that a peace deal would push it aside. Now, with an agreement to end America’s longest war on hold, Afghanistan suddenly faces a presidential vote amid warnings that it’s not ready — and the threat of even more violence.

GREECE’s prime minister says Turkey “continues to provoke” in its approach towards the ethnically divided island nation of Cyprus and that Ankara is becoming isolated internationally.

EU The incoming president of the European Union’s powerful executive arm yesterday nominated Irishman Phil Hogan to lead future EU trade talks, which could put him in charge of negotiations with Britain after Brexit.

NETHERLANDS The Dutch government says it expects to stop extracting gas from a vast underground field in the country’s north by mid-2022, ending decades of lucrative drilling.

GERMANY An interim leader of Germany’s junior governing party is stepping down after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has succeeded in his plan to suspend Britain’s rebellious Parliament for five weeks, but he has achieved little else in his first prolonged jousting with legislators determined to prevent a no-deal Brexit.