World Briefs

NORTH KOREA’s highest court sentences an American tourist who stole a banner to 15 years in prison with hard labor for subversion. Otto Warmbier, 21, was convicted and sentenced in a one-hour trial in the Supreme Court.

SINGAPORE’s government announced yesterday that it has arrested four citizens accused of links to armed conflict in Yemen and to a Kurdish militia group fighting against the Islamic State group. It said the four men were arrested in separate cases under the country’s Internal Security Act, which allows indefinite detention without charge. Two have since been released with restrictions.

INDONESIAN police said they killed two suspected Chinese Uighur militants during a hunt for the country’s most wanted Islamic radical. The two men were shot during a gunbattle this week in mountainous jungle terrain in Central Sulawesi province, local police said.

AUSTRALIA A piece of debris recently found on an Indian Ocean island where a wing fragment from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 had previously washed ashore is unlikely to be from the missing plane.
USA Donald Trump scored victories in three states, including the big-prize Florida, but lost Ohio to John Kasich, as the billionaire continued to move ahead in his stunning campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Hillary Clinton won at least four states, dealing a severe blow to Bernie Sanders’ bid to slow her march toward the Democratic nomination.

SYRIA Russia’s plan to withdraw forces from Syria is sending a strong message to President Bashar Assad, whose hard-line stance is diverging from Moscow’s interest in declaring its intervention in the country a success as it also accelerates peace efforts.

ISLAMIC STATE Omar al-Shishani, an Islamic State commander who was a magnet for fighters from the former Soviet Union, has died of wounds suffered in a U.S. airstrike in Syria, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

BELGIUM Belgian and French police investigating a suspected link with the November Paris attacks stormed a Brussels house. After being fired upon, police killed a suspect armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, authorities say.

GERMANY Authorities conducted raids across the country after the government banned a right-wing extremist group called Weisse Woelfe Terrorcrew accused of wanting to establish a Nazi-style dictatorship. The raids and seizures of evidence in 10 states targeted 16 leaders of the group.