MALAYSIA With a key Asian ally at his side, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter makes a subtle jab at China by flying aboard an American aircraft carrier plying the contested waters of the South China Sea. He and his Malaysian counterpart, Hishammuddin Hussein, watched U.S. Navy fighter jets roar off the steel deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt as it sailed under a midday sun about 70 miles northwest of Borneo.
INDIA Booker Prize-winning novelist Arundhati Roy has joined the growing number of writers, filmmakers, scientists and historians voicing alarm over what they describe as a climate of religious intolerance and violence in India.
INDONESIA Authorities deported yesterday an alleged Indian crime boss who has been on Interpol’s most-wanted list for two decades. Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, known in India as “Chotta Rajan,” is accused of involvement in several mafia killings and other crimes in his homeland. He was arrested Oct. 25 after arriving at Bali’s airport from Sydney.
AFGHANISTAN A breakaway faction of the Afghan Taliban has named its leader, further deepening the split within the insurgency. The dissident group picked Mullah Mohammad Rasool, a long-serving senior Taliban official, as the Taliban’s “supreme leader,” following a “long and thoughtful discussion,” according to Manan Niazi, the spokesman.
THAILAND Police in Thailand have cracked down on a sex ring that lured underage girls to work as prostitutes whose services were sold to high-ranking military officers, Buddhist monks and a variety of other officials, authorities say.
MALAYSIA The Malaysian government returns to U.S. custody human remains recovered from the crash of a U.S. military transport plane in 1945.
CANADA Justin Trudeau’s new Cabinet ministers vowed after their first meeting to honor campaign pledges to settle 25,000 refugees by the end of the year and to not buy F-35 fighter jets from the United States. Trudeau, the son of the late iconic Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, on Wednesday also promised a less controlling style of “government by Cabinet” after almost 10 years of Conservative rule under Stephen Harper. Women make up half of the Cabinet. Asked why gender balance is important, Trudeau said: “Because it’s 2015.”
USA Newly released details of a sweeping Pacific Rim trade deal set the stage for a raucous debate in the U.S. Congress but also may provide reassurances to those who worried the agreement could gut protections for the environment, public health and labor. The text of the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement between the U.S. and 11 other countries including Japan and Mexico runs to 30 chapters and hundreds of pages, making public the specifics of an agreement that critics complain was forged in secrecy.
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