World briefs

IRAQ’s state-sanctioned Shiite militias claim that some 5,000 fighters have joined their push to encircle the country’s second-largest city of Mosul and cut off Islamic State fighters there.

CHINA-PHILIPPINES China’s Foreign Ministry yesterday confirmed a decision to allow Philippine fishermen access to a disputed shoal following a visit to Beijing by the Philippine president.

SINGAPORE A private banker charged with offenses in connection with the indebted Malaysian state fund 1MDB went on trial in Singapore yesterday. Yeo Jiawei is facing 11 charges for allegedly obstructing the course of justice, money laundering, cheating and forgery.

JAPAN Novelist Haruki Murakami warned against excluding outsiders and rewriting history as he accepted the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award in Denmark. His speech was somewhat abstract, but Japanese media have interpreted it as a reference to refugees arriving in Europe and the protectionist response.

LEBANON’s parliament yesterday elected Michel Aoun, an 81-year-old former army commander and strong ally of the militant group Hezbollah, as the country’s president, ending a more than two-year vacuum in the top post and a political crisis that brought state institutions perilously close to collapse.

PAKISTAN Police launched a nation-wide crackdown on Sunday night, arresting at least 1,500 supporters of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan ahead of an opposition rally planned later this week in Islamabad. The arrests followed intermittent clashes over the weekend between Khan’s supporters and riot police that saw police using tear gas and batons to fight stone-throwing activists.

TURKEY Police detained the chief editor and at least 12 senior staff of Turkey’s opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper yesterday, in a widening crackdown on dissenting voices. Editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, cartoonist Musa Kart, the paper’s lawyer and several columnists were detained, some following raids at their homes.

UKRAINE Tens of thousands of Ukrainian officials and lawmakers have disclosed their incomes and assets in a publicly available database for the first time in what is commonly known in Ukraine as an e-declaration. Some Ukrainian politicians complained about filling in the elaborate forms for hours, and several lawmakers didn’t meet the deadline.

FRANCE Paris police rounded up Afghan migrants yesterday and cleared away some of their tents in a makeshift camp that has resurged in recent weeks. Yesterday’s operation was marked by tension and confusion. Riot police physically forced the migrants back and drew a cordon around them, as some migrants yelled and pushed back.