World Briefs

TAIWAN When Taiwan inaugurates Tsai Ing-wen as the self-ruled island’s first female president today, she’ll confront major challenges including navigating increasingly fractious relations with Beijing and rejuvenating the flagging economy.

JAPAN-US A group representing Japanese survivors of U.S. atomic bombings urges President Barack Obama to hear their stories and apologize when he visits Hiroshima.

PHILIPPINES Boxing great Manny Pacquiao is proclaimed one of the winners of Philippine Senate seats, bringing him closer to a possible crack at the presidency.

PHILIPPINES The economy grew faster than expected at 6.9 percent in the first quarter from the same period a year ago, its highest quarterly growth in almost three years, as the government prepares to hand over leadership to the incoming administration.

AFGHANISTAN A U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan says seven people were killed when a plane belonging to Silk Way Airlines of Azerbaijan crashed in the country’s south.

SRI LANKA Soldiers and police struggle to find hundreds of people missing after landslides destroyed at least three central Sri Lankan villages, with fresh rains triggering smaller slides and forcing rescuers to briefly suspend their efforts.

INDIA Many trains pull into Latur’s railroad station, but none is as eagerly awaited as the train that pulls into the parched town in the dead of the night. That train brings millions of liters of the precious liquid that the drought-plagued central Indian district so desperately needs.

INDIA’s ruling Hindu nationalist party makes dramatic gains in elections in the eastern state of Assam but trails in four other states.

G7 Japan faces a challenge in bridging a widening divide over how to revitalize sluggish growth in leading economies at a meeting of top financial officials that began yesterday with the group bashing in the lids of sake barrels. The finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven industrial nations were engaging in a local tradition for kicking off festivities, but it was in keeping with what could be a fractious event.

MARKETS World stock markets sink after the Fed surprised investors by signaling that an interest rate hike is in the cards if economic conditions keep improving. “Markets have looked for government stimulus as a reason for investing… therefore if there’s less chance of stimulus people are left wondering what to do,” said Andrew Sullivan, sales trader at Haitong Securities.