World briefs

YEMEN  Shiite rebels in control of Yemen’s capital now hold the country’s president “captive” at his home, his aides said yesterday, putting in question who actually rules the Arab world’s most-impoverished nation. Embattled Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi appears to have run out of options to continue governing the country, months after the Houthis began a blitz in September, seizing the capital and state institutions.

CHINA A New Yorker journalist famed for his reporting from China says the state-run newspaper China Daily faked an editorial under his byline after interviewing him.

JAPAN is doing all it can to free two hostages the Islamic State group is threatening to kill within 72 hours, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says, vowing never to give in to terrorism.

AFGHANISTAN A free media had been hailed as one of Afghanistan’s greatest achievements since the 2001 invasion. Since then, more than 40 journalists have reportedly been killed and many reporters feel pressured by the government, insurgents and corrupt warlords to self-censor to avoid trouble or leave journalism entirely.

INDONESIA Lawyers representing an American couple charged with murdering the woman’s mother and stuffing her in a suitcase argue that the indictments are absurd and inaccurate.

NEW ZEALAND Authorities struggle to control poaching in Antarctic waters, where illegal fishing boats can hold catches worth more than USD1 million.

PHILIPPINES A Philippine official says surveillance photographs show that China’s land reclamation in contested reefs in the South China Sea has become “massive” and is continuing despite protests.

SRI LANKA’s new government will re-investigate high-profile assassinations including that of a newspaper editor and politicians during the previous administration that were alleged to have had state backing, an official says.

INDIA A court orders the Indian government to release USD300,000 sent by Greenpeace’s foreign partners for use in India by the environmental group. The funds were frozen in June last year amid accusations that Greenpeace’s environmental campaigns were hurting India’s development projects.

NIGERIA Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has claimed responsibility for the mass killings in the northeast Nigerian town of Baga and threatened more violence. As many as 2,000 civilians were killed and 3,700 homes and business were destroyed in the Jan. 3 attack on the town near Nigeria’s border with Cameroon, said Amnesty International.

UKRAINE’s president is courting European support against what he says are 9,000 Russian troops occupying 7 percent of his nation’s territory. Moscow has denied Ukrainian and Western claims that it provides manpower and arms to the separatists but has acknowledged that some Russians have joined the insurgents. Yet the sheer amount of sophisticated heavy weaponry in insurgent hands is widely seen in the West as irrefutable evidence of Russia’s direct involvement.