World briefs

IRAQ The advance of government troops slowed yesterday in the last push to drive Islamic State group militants from the remaining pockets of Mosul. The city’s wide-scale military operation was launched in October last year and its eastern half was declared liberated in January. The United Nations has warned that civilians will be hardest hit in the final phase of the assault.

AUSTRALIAN drug smuggler Schapelle Corby, whose trial and imprisonment on Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali mesmerized her country for more than a decade, returned home yesterday.

INDONESIA Lawmakers should expedite the passage of revised anti-terrorism laws that give police more power, President Joko Widodo said after twin suicide attacks in the capital last week killed three policemen.

MYANMAR was supposed to turn away from China and toward the West when the United States helped the Southeast Asian country make the transition to a civilian government after five decades of military rule. Instead, the opposite is happening. 

SRI LANKA Rescuers yesterday pulled out more bodies that were buried by enormous mudslides as the death toll in the disaster climbed to 151, with 111 others missing. Although the weather has cleared, more rains are forecast for today, threatening to bring further misery to over 100,000 people displaced in western and southern regions of the island nation that were lashed by two days of torrential rains.

INDIA Government forces enforced a strict curfew in parts of Indian-controlled Kashmir yesterday, a day after the killing of a prominent rebel commander by Indian soldiers sparked massive protests in the disputed region. 

POLAND’s  popular pro-democracy movement has elected a new leader amid signs of waning and controversies surrounding the finances of its previous chairman.

SPAIN’s minority government has cobbled together enough support from opposition parties in Parliament to pass its 2017 budget. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy required just one additional vote to obtain a majority of 176 and that was granted by Nueva Canarias, a regional party of Spain’s Canary Islands.

BRAZIL Key leaders in the governing coalition of embattled Brazilian President Michel Temer are now speculating about who might replace him if he is forced from office by a corruption scandal — frank talk that underscores his fragile grasp on power.