World briefs

MYANMAR An armed militant group fighting Myanmar’s government on behalf of the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority has issued a statement asserting its right to self-defense and denying links to any terrorist group. The statement issued 20 demands to the government for ensuring Rohingya rights. More on p13

AUSTRALIA Residents of the cyclone-battered tropical northeast emerged from their homes yesterday to find roofs lying in their yards, boats flung onto rocks and roads blocked by tangles of fallen trees and power lines, as emergency officials tried to reach communities cut off by the powerful storm.

NEPAL Mountaineering expedition organizers in Nepal are sending huge trash bags with climbers on Mount Everest during the spring climbing season to collect trash that then can be winched by helicopters back to the base camp.

INDIA Mobs have repeatedly attacked Africans in a New Delhi suburb in recent days after rumors that a local boy had been kidnapped by Nigerians. A mob of people is searching the area for Africans, with some accusing kidnappers of eating the boy.

YEMEN’s embattled president launched a scathing verbal attack on Iran at an Arab summit in Jordan yesterday, saying the non-Arab and mostly Shiite nation is pursuing expansionist policies to destroy the Arab identity.

EGYPT’s famed pyramids at Giza have a newcomer in their midst: the largest on-site antiquities laboratory meant to restore the location’s second pharaonic boat.

The vessel is believed to be the ceremonial boat of Pharaoh Cheops, known for building the largest of Egypt’s pyramids. The project is funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Higashi Nippon International University, and is set to complete the initial phase of repairs by 2020.

KOSOVO Albanians in Kosovo blocked roads yesterday to prevent the local Serb minority and people coming from Serbia from holding an electoral rally. Police said that the road was blocked in five or six locations but cleared after a couple of hours.

FRANCE The daughter of a man killed in a police raid at their home in Paris said her father never had a chance against the officers who broke down their door and shot him, disputing the police account of the deadly events that touched off riots in a neighborhood that is home to many Chinese immigrants.

BRAZIL Police have arrested a former executive engineering manager of Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras for his alleged role in a mammoth corruption-kickback scheme.