World briefs

SOUTH CHINA SEA Vietnam urged China yesterday to take responsible and constructive actions in the disputed South China Sea following a Pentagon report that highlighted Beijing’s military buildup in the strategic waters. The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry said the country had a legal basis and historical evidence to affirm its sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel islands.

CAMBODIA Prosecutors in the U.N.-backed trial of two leaders of Cambodia’s former Khmer Rouge regime on charges of genocide and other crimes called yesterday for life imprisonment as the only appropriate punishment. The Khmer Rouge has been blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during its 1975-79 rule. The current trial began in October 2014.

INDONESIA Authorities say they arrested two suspected wildlife smugglers after a raid on a port warehouse in Sumatra uncovered more than 200 pangolins, many of them dead from stress and dehydration.

PAKISTAN’s prime minister yesterday denied allegations of corruption and money laundering during a nearly three-hour appearance before a Supreme Court-appointed team investigating his family’s offshore companies.

SOMALIA Islamic extremists attacked a popular Somalia restaurant in an overnight siege and killed 31 people — many at point-blank range — before they were slain by security forces, police said yesterday. 

ISRAEL Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised yesterday to promote plans for an ambitious Mediterranean undersea natural gas pipeline project, in a bid by his country to become a key European energy supplier. Israel is hoping to export much of its newly discovered natural gas to Europe by a proposed 2,200-kilometer undersea pipeline to Cyprus and Greece.

SYRIA Government forces are marching toward the last town held by the Islamic State group in the central province of Homs in the latest push by President Bashar Assad’s forces.

TURKEY’s main opposition party set off on a 425-kilometer march yesterday from the capital to an Istanbul prison to protest the conviction of one of its lawmakers. Thousands began walking from Ankara, with police at the scene.

GERMANY-AUSTRIA Germany and Austria voiced sharp criticism yesterday of the latest U.S. sanctions against Moscow, saying they could affect European businesses involved in piping in Russian natural gas.

COLOMBIA’s foreign minister said yesterday that the implementation of last year’s peace agreement with leftist rebels, ending one of the world’s bloodiest and longest-running armed conflicts, “has been more difficult” than expected.