CAMBODIA A lawyer says Cambodian opposition senator has been charged with three counts that carry penalties of up to 17 years in prison for Facebook comments that criticized a 36-year-old border agreement with Vietnam. Sen. Hong Sok Hour was arrested over the weekend after Prime Minister Hun Sen had accused him of treason.
MALAYSIA’s prime minister has a problem: He can’t explain away a USD700 million bank account to a skeptical public. His response? A crackdown on critics and the press that has kept him in power but doesn’t address a deep reservoir of dissatisfaction with his leadership.
THAILAND’s Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn leads a 43-kilometer bike ride through the streets of the capital in tribute to his mother, Queen Sirikit, to mark her 83rd birthday — also an exercise in palace public relations at a time of concern about the royal succession.
PAKISTAN Hamid Gul (pictured), who led Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency as it funneled U.S. and Saudi cash and weapons to Afghan jihadis fighting against the Soviets and later publicly supported Islamic militants, died late Saturday of a brain hemorrhage. He was 78.
PAKISTAN A Cabinet minister resigned from his post on Saturday after claiming in an interview that the country’s former spy master Gen. Zaheerul Islam wanted to overthrow Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif through violent rallies in Islamabad last year. The government received the letter of resignation from Mushahidullah Khan, a senior leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N party, Information Minister Pervez Rashid said, but it was not clear if Sharif would accept it.
SYRIAN government warplanes attacked a busy market in a rebel-held suburb of the capital Damascus yesterday, killing at least 82 people and wounding more than 200 in one of the deadliest single incidents involving government airstrikes since the crisis began nearly five years ago, activists said.
IRAQ Islamic State militants launched an attack against government troops yesterday outside the militant-held city of Fallujah, killing at least 17 troops, officials said.
USA Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated Saturday that she did not send or receive emails marked classified from her home-based email server while secretary of state, an issue that continues to overshadow her campaign. Clinton told reporters at the Iowa State Fair that she would let the inquiry into her email use continue, while she blamed her Republican challengers and House Republican members for turning the issue into a partisan affair.
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