World briefs

ISRAEL-PALESTINE Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said statements made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured) and U.S. President Donald Trump mark the end of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The leader of the Lebaense militant group said the “two-state basis for peace [is] over,” and described Trump’s policy on the issue as “confused”.

PHILIPPINES An opposition senator pressed Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday to publicly release details of his bank accounts to disprove allegations that he had large sums of undeclared money. Trillanes, one of Duterte’s harshest critics and a navy officer once detained for a failed coup plot against a former president, said he would resign if Duterte can disprove the allegations. 

THAILAND Police raided the head temple of a controversial Buddhist sect yesterday but failed to find and arrest the abbot, who faces criminal charges over accepting USD40 million in embezzled money. The action followed several earlier failed attempts, thwarted when crowds of monks and followers blocked the way, risking a violent confrontation.

MYANMAR’s government says the military has ended its four-month counterinsurgency operation in troubled Rakhine state, where it had been accused of rape, torture and other abuses against Muslim Rohingya minority residents.

INDONESIA After months of campaigning dominated by religious and racial tensions, none of the three candidates vying to run Indonesia’s biggest city of Jakarta secured the 50 percent needed for an outright win, setting the stage for a run-off election in April. An escalation of the violence, racial bigotry and huge protests that overshadowed campaigning is feared in the capital ahead of the April vote.

MONGOLIA Exceptionally cold weather in Mongolia is putting the livelihoods of more than 150,000 nomadic herders and family members at risk, just one year after another extreme winter killed more than 1 million animals, the Red Cross says as it launches an emergency appeal.

N. ZEALAND Firefighters in New Zealand’s second-largest city were able to halt a wildfire’s advance on suburban homes yesterday after it burned down 11 houses in the hill suburbs and forced hundreds of people to evacuate.

SYRIA A leader of the Russian delegation at talks on resolving the war in Syria says agreement has been reached to form a permanent contact group of Russia, Turkey and Iran to “preserve and strengthen the cessation of hostilities.”