CHINA has sentenced the former president of Interpol, Meng Hongwei, to 13 years and six months in prison on charges of accepting more than $2 million in bribes. More on p11
MALAYSIA The family of a London teen found dead after she mysteriously vanished from a Malaysian nature resort last year has sued the resort owner for alleged negligence and appealed to the government for an inquest to determine what happened to her. The lawyer, Sankara Nair, said the family strongly believed Nora was abducted as she has mental and physical disabilities and couldn’t have wandered off on her own.
THAILAND The Constitutional Court yesterday acquitted the country’s third-largest political party of seeking to overthrow the constitutional monarchy in another legal case highlighting political divisions in the Southeast Asian nation. The court ruled that the Future Forward Party showed no intention of committing sedition and that the complaint had not been filed correctly.
SOUTH KOREA An anti-piracy unit has temporarily expanded its mission to the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global oil route at the center of soaring tensions between Iran and the United States. South Korea’s Defense Ministry announced the expansion yesterday, saying it was meant to help ensure the safe passage of South Korean vessels and nationals through the waterway.
ISRAEL Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling on the world to take “concrete actions” against the International Criminal Court ahead of a possible war-crimes case against Israel. The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said last month that there was a “reasonable basis” to open a war crimes probe into Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip as well as Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.
UKRAINE Belarus started importing oil from Norway yesterday after its main oil provider —Russia — suspended supplies earlier this month amid stalled talk on further strengthening economic ties between two countries. Belarusian state-run oil company Belneftekhim said yesterday its subsidiary bought 80,000 tones of crude oil from Norway, which is expected to be delivered to the country’s refineries via railway in the next few days.
POLAND US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a Congressional delegation paid a visit yesterday to the site of the former Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau ahead of the 75th anniversary of its liberation by Soviet troops. At the memorial site in southern Poland, Pelosi laid wreaths at the Death Wall where inmates were executed.
USA President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial formally opens in the Senate, promising to shape his legacy, deepen the country’s political divisions and influence control of power in the nation’s capital for years to come.
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