World Briefs

HONG KONG police said missing book editor Lee Bo returned home yesterday following his disappearance in a case that rattled civil liberties advocates in the territory. In a statement the police added that Lee told officers that he had been safe and free on the mainland, but provided few details.

THAILAND Police said yesterday that they arrested 15 Malaysians trying to smuggle millions of dollars of crystal meth and heroin stashed in luggage on a train bound for Malaysia. They said that the seizure included 226 kilograms of crystal meth, with a street value in Thailand of USD13 million.

MYANMAR Amnesty International has urged Aung San Suu Kyi and her party’s new government to immediately release all political prisoners, saying they have a historic opportunity to lead Myanmar out of the repressive climate under the former junta rule.

NORTH KOREA says it has successfully conducted a high-powered, solid-fuel rocket engine test, which if confirmed would be a major step forward in boosting its missile attack capability against South Korea and the United States.
South Korea Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest maker of phones, memory chips and television sets, plans to revamp its authoritarian, top-down corporate culture to become more like a lean startup as it copes with sluggish demand and growing competition.

JAPAN’s whaling fleet has returned with 333 whales, its catch quota, that it caught in its first Antarctic harvest since an international court stopped its hunt two years ago.

BANGLADESH Deadly violence erupted during local elections in Bangladesh, leaving at least 13 people dead this week. Analysts said the mayhem shows the country’s democracy is struggling in the face of Islamist extremism and a divisive debate over how to deal with the legacy of its 1971 civil war.

SYRIA According to Syrian state television, government forces have entered the ancient town of Palmyra, however a monitoring group said the fighting was still outside the city.

ARGENTINA U.S. President Barack Obama, who is on a visit to Argentina, has promised to release secret files concerning the U.S. role in the military coup there 40 years ago that installed one of the region’s most brutal regimes.