World briefs
PORTUGAL A 12-month-old baby and two foreign women were among the 13 people killed when a huge oak tree crashed down on an outdoor religious festival in Portugal’s Madeira Islands, authorities said yesterday. The foreigners killed in the accident were a 42-year-old French woman and a 31-year-old Hungarian woman.
VIETNAM’s vice trade minister has been fired for alleged wrongdoing as the ruling Communist Party widened its crackdown on corruption.
INDONESIA’s president yesterday vowed a fairer distribution of the nation’s wealth and a renewed commitment to protecting diversity after volatile months in which the country’s reputation for tolerance was undermined by religious tensions and attacks on minorities.
MALAYSIA Scientists have potentially narrowed the search area for the missing Malaysian airliner to three specific locations in the southern Indian Ocean. The new analysis is based on French military satellite images gathered on March 23, 2014 — two weeks after Flight 370 mysteriously veered far off course during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. More on p12
LEBANON’s parliament yesterday abolished a law that allowed rapists to avoid prison by marrying their victims. The repeal of the law, which had been in place since the 1940s, follows years of campaigning by women’s rights advocates.
ZIMBABWE’s first lady Grace Mugabe has requested diplomatic immunity over an allegation that she assaulted a young model in Johannesburg earlier this week, said South Africa’s police. Mugabe is still in South Africa after a day of intense speculation over her whereabouts after a 20-year-old model accused the wife of Zimbabwe’s president of assault.
LIBYA A Spanish aid group dedicated to saving migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea says that Libyan coast guard boats have threatened their crews twice in recent days.
BRITAIN-IRELAND There must be no border posts between the U.K. and Ireland after Brexit, and European Union citizens will be able to enter Britain through EU member state Ireland without immigration checks, the British government said yesterday.
COLOMBIA U.N. observers removed the last of more than 8,000 guns once carried by the guerrillas of Colombia’s largest rebel army and collected at 26 demobilization sites around the South American nation under a historic peace deal. Some of the weapons will be smelted and transformed into statues commemorating the end to Latin America’s longest-running armed conflict.
