World briefs

HONG KONG Dozens of protesters marched through a shopping mall in Sha Tin Sunday, heckling mainland Chinese traders and chanting “Go Back to China”, according to local media reports. Some protesters even scuffled with the police, who fired pepper spray and arrested six people aged between 17 and 36, broadcaster RTHK reported.

CHINA A former top official accused of taking bribes in return for government positions has been expelled from the ruling Communist party and stripped of all government positions, a party watchdog says. Su Rong, a former provincial party leader and former vice chairman of China’s top political advisory body, also will likely face criminal charges.

INDIA Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, Maithripala Sirisena, hold wide-ranging talks as the South Asian neighbors seek to strengthen strategic ties, increase trade and resolve long-standing issues between their nations.

SINGAPORE’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, but is expected to recover fully after undergoing surgery, his office said Sunday. Lee, 63, had surgery to remove his prostate gland yesterday, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement posted on its official website.

MALAYSIA Less than a week after Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was jailed for sodomy, his lawyers say he faces a health risk because he’s living in a bare cell with just a 2-inch-thick foam mattress on the floor, a bucket for bathing and a squat toilet.

EAST TIMOR Opposition party member Rui Maria de Araujo is sworn-in as East Timor’s prime minister, leading a new 38-member Cabinet for the half-island nation.

EGYPT says it has launched airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Libya after the extremist group released a grisly video of the beheading of several Egyptian Coptic Christian hostages. It is the first time Cairo has acknowledged intervening militarily in violence-wracked Libya, where extremist groups seen as a threat to both countries have exploited the chaos following the 2011 uprising. More on p14

FRANCE Dominique Strauss-Kahn has testified to having orgies while he was managing the world financial crisis, to being “rough” with his sexual “conquests,” and to needing sex with exceptional frequency. But no obvious evidence has emerged during a prostitution trial in France that Strauss-Kahn did anything illegal. As the trial enters its third and final week, it looks increasingly likely that the onetime presidential contender will walk away with a clean criminal record.