World Briefs

TAIWAN‘’s outgoing president and his successor emphasize the need for a smooth transition of power amid a slowdown in the island’s high-tech economy and uncertainty over sensitive relations with China.

MONGOLIA A rare public protest in Mongolia’s capital draws thousands of demonstrators who criticize foreign mining concessions and demand action to prop up the tottering economy.

JAPAN Regulators approve the use of a giant refrigeration system to create an unprecedented underground frozen barrier around buildings at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant in an attempt to contain leaking radioactive water.

AFGHANISTAN At least 15 members of the Afghan security forces are killed in a gunbattle with the Taliban in volatile southern Uruzgan province, an official says.

ASIA Softer growth prospects for China and a weak recovery in major industrial economies are expected to push down economic growth in developing Asia to 5.7 percent this year and next, the Asian Development Bank says.

USA-RUSSIA U.S. officials say the Pentagon will be deploying an armored brigade combat team to Eastern Europe next February as part of the ongoing effort to rotate troops in and out of the region to reassure allies worried about threats from an increasingly aggressive Russia. The officials said the Army announced yesterday that it will be sending a full set of equipment with the brigade to Europe.

USA Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump says the reporter who is behind misdemeanor battery charges against his campaign manager “shouldn’t have been grabbing me.” Trump defended campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on Fox News yesterday, a day after Florida police charged him following an incident earlier this month in which Lewandowski pulled the reporter, Michelle Fields, away from Trump as she tried to ask the billionaire a question.

SPAIN’s far left Podemos party leader Pablo Iglesias says he’s prepared to give up his demand for the No. 2 government job in a deal to form a government with the center-left Socialist Party. Iglesias made the declaration yesterday after meeting with Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez in an attempt to break a three-month political deadlock following Spain’s inconclusive Dec. 20 election.

FRANCE Italian olives painted with copper sulphate solution, Sudanese sugar tainted with fertilizer, and hundreds of thousands of liters of bogus alcoholic drinks top Interpol’s annual tally of toxic and counterfeit food seized by police agencies across the world. The haul of bogus diet supplements, adulterated honey and formalin-drenched chicken guts makes for stomach-churning reading. A statement by Interpol said that a record 10,000 tonnes has been recovered across 57 countries.