World briefs

CHINA’s Central Bank said yesterday that it will cut its bank reserve requirement ratio by 1 percentage point to stimulate more lending into a slowing economy.

AFGHANISTAN  An Afghan police chief says insurgents armed with guns and explosives have entered a police station in the southern city of Lashkar Gar after a suicide bomber detonated explosives at the gate of the compound allowing the others to gain entry.

NEPAL on Saturday marked the anniversary of Mount Everest’s deadliest avalanche with a memorial and a government announcement that it will set up a welfare fund for mountaineering and trekking workers in the Himalayan nation. The April 18, 2014, avalanche killed 16 Sherpa guides who were carrying their loads just above Everest’s base camp.

MEXICO  About 200 participants in a protest convoy of Central American migrants arrived in Mexico’s capital Saturday and filed abuse complaints with the government’s National Human Rights Commission. The agency said in a statement that an ombudsman met with representatives of the protest, who turned in 139 complaints alleging violations against migrants by Mexican federal police and immigration officers.

GERMANY  Officials in Germany solemnly commemorated the liberation of two Nazi concentration camps 70 years ago in the closing days of World War II. Poland’s first lady, Anna Komorowska, joined in remembrance activities yesterday at the site of the Ravensbrueck women’s camp in northern Germany. Many of the prisoners came from Poland. Ceremonies also were taking place at the former Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin.

FINLAND Finns are voting in parliamentary elections that will determine which coalition of parties can lead the country out of a three-year recession. Conservative Prime Minister Alexander Stubb (pictured) acknowledges economic reforms should have been made earlier by the government during its four-year term. Campaigning for yesterday’s election was dominated by arguments over unemployment, benefit cuts and the rising national debt.

LIBYA The extremist Islamic State group, which controls a third of both Iraq and Syria in its self-declared caliphate, released a video Sunday purportedly showing militants killing two groups of Ethiopian Christians in Libya. More on p14

CUBA At least two dissidents made it past a first round of voting and are standing as candidates in municipal elections that will be watched on and off the island yesterday as an unprecedented test of Cuba’s single-party system.

USA After anonymously buying Elvis’ first-ever recording at a January auction, rock star Jack White is offering a limited-run vinyl re-release of “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” at his Third Man Records in Nashville.

USA An outfit Vivien Leigh wore when she played Scarlett O’Hara in the 1939 film “Gone With the Wind” has fetched USD137,000 at auction. Heritage Auctions offered the gray jacket and skirt, featuring a black zigzag applique, plus other items from the Academy Award-winning film at auction Saturday in Beverly Hills, California.

YEMEN  The political party of Yemen’s former longtime autocrat said yesterday that it welcomes a U.N. resolution calling for a cease-fire in the country, urging all involved in the conflict, including a Saudi-led Arab coalition, to observe it.