World briefs

CHINA Foreign ministry lashed out at The New York Times yesterday over its release of leaked documents portraying the inner workings of Beijing’s campaign to detain more than a million Muslims in reeducation camps.

INDONESIA Police said yesterday that they have arrested 43 suspected militants believed to have links to last week’s suicide attack at a busy police station in the country’s third-largest city.

SRI LANKA Former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s president yesterday and appealed to minority Tamils and Muslims who voted against him to give their support. Rajapaksa, who is credited with helping end the country’s long civil war, comfortably won Saturday’s presidential election.

JAPAN The Tokyo Olympic marathons and race walks, moved last month to the northern city of Sapporo to avoid the capital’s summer heat, are likely to start and finish in the city’s Odori Park. Tokyo organizers met with city prefectural officials yesterday.

NEW ZEALAND  Minnesota Twins prospect Ryan Costello was found dead in his hotel room in New Zealand yesterday, days after joining the Auckland Tuatara in the Australian Baseball League. The 23-year-old third baseman died in his sleep, apparently of natural causes, team officials said.

LIBYA An airstrike slammed into a biscuit factory in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, yesterday killing at least seven workers including five foreign nationals and two Libyans, health authorities said.

FRANCE President Emmanuel Macron and Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen have called for more unified European Union rules on granting asylum to better handle uncontrolled immigration. In a joint statement in Paris yesterday, the two pushed for a “reinforced protection” of European external borders. Macron said he hoped the EU will be able to make progress on the issue in coming months.

SPAIN A van carrying 52 migrants and going at high speed smashed through a border barrier between Morocco and Spain to enter the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, officials said yesterday.

VATICAN Pope Francis yesterday replaced the head of the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency amid continuing fallout from a controversial Vatican police raid on the agency’s offices that jeopardized the Holy See’s international financial reputation.

US Officials were told that Ukraine’s leader was feeling pressure from the Trump administration to investigate Democrats, even before his summer phone call with President Donald Trump, two people with knowledge of the briefings tell The Associated Press. The people say that at least three U.S. officials were briefed on Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s worries before his July 25 phone call with Trump that has led to House impeachment hearings in Washington.