World Briefs

CHINA Garbage picker Zhao Shunli’s transformation takes place several times a week in a simple bedroom filled with Mao Zedong memorabilia, its concrete walls lined with posters portraying the founder of the communist state.

CHINA-TAIWAN Beijing is staging joint war games featuring mock beach landing, helicopter assaults and tank battles along its east coast facing Taiwan, just days before the inauguration of the self-governing island’s new independence-leaning president.

PHILIPPINES President Obama offers his congratulations to the new presumptive president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte who has attracted both controversy over his iron-fisted approach to law and order and praise by communist rebels.

US-NORTH KOREA Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he’s open to speaking with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to halt the communist nation’s nuclear program.

JAPAN’s economy grew at a better than expected 1.7 percent annual pace in the first quarter of this year, as solid consumer demand and higher government spending offset relatively weak business investment and sluggish exports.

AUSTRALIA A 72-year-old man told rescuers he threw spanners and spark plugs to keep crocodiles at bay after a crocodile capsized his boat in a northern Australian creek and his friend drowned.

USA Bernie Sanders wins Oregon’s presidential primary and battles Hillary Clinton to a neck-and-neck outcome in Kentucky, vowing to soldier on as Clinton sought to blunt his momentum ahead of her likely general election matchup against Republican Donald Trump.

USA Senate passes legislation that would allow families of Sept. 11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia.

MEXICO President Enrique Pena Nieto proposes to legalize same-sex marriage in Mexico, a move that would enshrine on a national level a Supreme Court ruling last year that it was unconstitutional for states to bar such couples from wedding.

KENYA Widely viewed pictures and video of a protester being kicked by Kenyan riot police as he lay on the ground cause a stir in this East Africa country, prompting debate on police brutality and civil rights.

ZIKA The US Senate voted decisively in favor of a bipartisan USD1.1 billion measure to combat the Zika virus this year and next, cutting back President Barack Obama’s request but offering significantly more money to fight Zika than would House GOP conservatives.