World Briefs

CHINA The fifth Beijing International Festival opened yesterday in China’s capital city, where the local government and national film authorities are hoping to raise the event’s profile by hiring a veteran European festival chief. The festival, which continues through April 23, is overseen by Marco Mueller (pictured), a Swiss-Italian who has produced several films including the Oscar-winning 2001 Bosnian film “No Man’s Land.” Luc Besson leads the festival jury and Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to speak.

THAILAND The United Nations human rights office urges Thailand to speed up an investigation into the disappearance of an ethnic minority environmental activist who helped villagers report illegal activity in the largest national park.

PAKISTAN’s top court halts the executions of six suspects sentenced by military courts on charges ranging from terrorism, murder to suicide bombing and kidnapping for ransom.

VIETNAM Hundreds of villagers in central Vietnam block traffic on the country’s main artery for hours to protest pollution from a coal-fired power plant.

NEPAL Surya Bahadur Thapa, who served as Nepal’s prime minister five times, dies in India where he was being treated for stomach cancer.

YEMEN Military officials and residents say al-Qaida has taken control of a major airport, a sea port and an oil terminal in southern Yemen after brief clashes with troops. The officials said al-Qaida fighters clashed yesterday with members of one of Yemen’s largest infantry brigades outside Mukalla, a city the militants overran earlier this month.

FRANCE  The late former editor of French weekly Charlie Hebdo condemns “Islamophobia” as thinly disguised racism in a posthumously published book that was completed two days before he was killed in France’s worst terror attack in years. Stephane Charbonnier’s 88-page book, whose title translates as “Letter to tricksters of Islamophobia who are playing the game of racists,” was released in France yesterday. It criticizes those who exploit anti-Islam sentiment for their own ends.

SOUTH AFRICAN police said about 50 immigrants took refuge in a Johannesburg police station overnight, afraid that they would be targeted in attacks against foreigners while people a peace march was planned in another city. People began gathering in a sports stadium in the coastal city of Durban for a march denouncing the attacks. Police said attacks have left five people dead there in recent days.

USA The board of the Clinton Foundation says it will continue accepting donations from foreign governments, but only from six nations, a move that appears aimed at insulating Hillary Rodham Clinton from controversies over the charity’s reliance on millions of dollars from abroad.