World Briefs

CHINA Global business is catching a chill from China’s virus outbreak. Airlines have canceled 25,000 flights to and within China after ticket sales collapsed, according to travel data provider OAG. General Motors Co. and other automakers are telling employees to limit travel to China, their biggest market. More on p8

JAPAN Electronics and entertainment company Sony Corp. warned yesterday that forecasts and results were at risk because of the new virus in China, as it reported a drop in fiscal third quarter on stumbling video game, networking and film businesses. Tokyo-based Sony, which makes PlayStation video-game consoles, Bravia TVs and Spider-Man films, said the impact of the virus was unclear, but production and sales of its image sensor division were at risk.

BANGLADESH Investigators from the International Criminal Court have begun collecting evidence for a case involving alleged crimes against humanity by Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims causing them to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, a court official said yesterday.

SOUTH KOREA A K-pop star charged with violating South Korea’s anti-prostitution law may have to join the country’s army and face trial in a military court. Last week, prosecutors indicted former Big Bang member Seungri, whose real name is Lee Seung-hyun, on charges of violating laws on prostitution, illegal gambling and foreign currency trading.

INDIA’s ruling Hindu nationalist-led government said it was still weighing whether to roll out a nationwide citizenship registry, an exercise it says would weed out illegal foreign nationals, amid ongoing protests against a citizenship law that fast-tracks naturalization for some religious minorities from three neighboring countries but not Muslims.

SRI LANKA’s new government declined to sing the national anthem in Tamil, the country’s second national language, during the island’s Independence Day celebrations yesterday, a departure from the previous government which sang the anthem in the country’s two primary languages to promote ethnic harmony in the aftermath of a decades-long civil war.

USA A new mobile app was supposed to help Democratic officials quickly gather information from some 1,700 caucus sites throughout Iowa. Instead, a “coding issue” within the app is being blamed for delays that left the results unknown the morning after the first-in-the nation presidential nominating contest. Glitches with a new mobile app caused confusion, and some caucus organizers were forced to call in results for the state party to record manually, introducing delays and the possibility of human error.

USA On the brink of his Senate acquittal, President Donald Trump will be unleashing “relentless optimism” during his third State of the Union address, a speech designed to pivot from his impeachment to his drive for reelection. Trump is speaking from a position of strength, with nearly complete control of the Republican Party. The theme of his speech: «The Great American Comeback.” It’ll be a different experience for Democrats, nearly all of whom voted for Trump’s impeachment in the House.

KENYA Daniel arap Moi, a former schoolteacher who became Kenya’s longest-serving president and presided over years of repression and economic turmoil fueled by runaway corruption, has died. He was 95. Moi’s death was announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta in a statement yesterday.