World Briefs

CHINA’s top disciplinary watchdog is investigating Xi Xiaoming, a vice president of the country’s top court, as the ruling Communist Party presses ahead with a nationwide graft crackdown now in its third year.
Xi is suspected of “severe discipline and law violations,” China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a short statement on its website Sunday night.

CHINA A warehouse containing fireworks exploded in northern China, killing 15 people, a local authority said yesterday. The explosion Sunday morning happened in Ningjin county in Hebei province, which borders Beijing, and also left two other people seriously injured, according to the microblog of the county’s propaganda office.

INDONESIA Bali’s airport was open yesterday after being closed for much of the past three days, with authorities monitoring ash from a nearby volcano that continues to erupt about every two hours. The wind is now blowing ash from Mount Raung to the south, away from Bali, Syamsul Huda, a spokesman at Indonesia’s meteorological agency, said yesterday.

JAPAN-THAILAND Japanese prosecutors decide not to press charges against a former Bangkok police chief over a loaded gun found in his checked luggage.

INDIA-ITALY  India’s top court allows an Italian marine to stay in his country for another six months on medical leave before he and a fellow marine face trial in New Delhi for fatally shooting two Indian fishermen in 2012.

AFGHANISTAN A suicide car bombing near a military base in eastern Afghanistan that once hosted CIA employees kills at least 26 people, the latest insurgent attack afterforeign forces ended their combat mission there.

MALAYSIAN police say they are investigating the leak of confidential documents that allegedly show millions of dollars were funneled to Prime Minister Najib Razak’s account, an explosive disclosure that has shaken the ruling coalition in power since 1957 to the core.

ROMANIA Prosecutors indicted Prime Minister Victor Ponta yesterday as part of a wide-ranging corruption investigation and seized his assets, putting further pressure on him to resign. Prosecutors said Ponta has been indicted on charges including tax evasion, money laundering, conflict of interest and making false statements while he was working as a lawyer in 2007 and 2008. At the time, Ponta was a lawmaker. He denies wrongdoing.

JORDAN UNESCO declares a spot on the Jordanian side of the Jordan river, long believed to be the place where Jesus was baptized, as a World Heritage site — drawing cheers from Jordan’s struggling tourism industry while raising eyebrows among some experts.

HUNGARY’s military has begun building a fence on the country’s southern border with Serbia, meant to stem the unprecedented flow of migrants. State news wire MTI says work on the fence started yesterday morning on the outskirts of the town of Morahalom, where a bulldozer was preparing the ground for construction. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto had said earlier the 4-meter high fence would be built in the eight to 10 areas “most exposed to the immigration pressure.”