World briefs

CHINA China’s ruling Communist Party announces an investigation into a feared ex-security chief, demonstrating President Xi Jinping’s grip on power and breaking a longstanding taboo against publicly targeting the country’s topmost leaders.

CAMBODIA The slow course of justice for the leaders of Cambodia’s murderous Khmer Rouge regime will inch forward again as a U.N.-backed tribunal holds an initial hearing today against a pair of defendants in their 80s on genocide and other charges.

SYRIA Activists say more than 2,000 Syrians — almost half of them pro-government forces — have been killed in just over two weeks of fighting in Syria, marking one of the worst death tolls in the country’s civil war. The reports reflect a recent surge in attacks by an al-Qaida-breakaway group targeting President Assad’s forces, signaling shifting priorities as Sunni militants seek to consolidate their hold on territory and resources in northern Syria.

AFGHANISTAN A cousin and close associate of outgoing President Hamid Karzai was assassinated by a suicide bomber who hid his explosives under his turban. The bomber walked up to the home of Hashmat Khalil Karzai to greet him after morning prayers for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, and detonated the explosives after shaking hands with the president’s cousin, the official said.

GAZA STRIP Israeli aircraft, tanks and navy gunboats targeted symbols of Hamas control in Gaza City early yesterday in the heaviest night of bombardment in three weeks of Israel-Hamas fighting after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a “prolonged” campaign in Gaza. The overnight strikes hit the home of the top Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, as well as government offices and the headquarters of the Hamas satellite TV station.

RUSSIA Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government must pay USD50 billion for using tax claims to destroy Yukos, once the country’s largest oil producer, and its Kremlin-critical CEO, an international court rules. Monday’s verdict by the court — a body that rules on global corporate disputes — comes at a time when Russia faces new, potentially painful sanctions from Western powers over its backing of Ukraine rebels.

USA The U.S. says millions of people were forced from their homes because of their religious beliefs last year. The State Department released its 2013 report on religious freedom around the world. It said in conflict zones, mass displacement has become the, quote, “pernicious norm.” The report said that in much of the Middle East, the Christian presence is becoming “a shadow of its former self.”

CANADA Canada said the network of a government research agency was breached by Chinese hackers. The government “detected and confirmed a cyber intrusion on the IT infrastructure of the National Research Council of Canada by a highly sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored actor,” Chief Information Officer Corinne Charette said in a statement.