LEBANON-SYRIA Islamic State militants and their families began leaving a border area between Lebanon and Syria yesterday as part of a negotiated deal to end the group’s presence there, Lebanese and Syrian media reported. An unidentified number of militants and their families headed in buses toward a town held by the extremist group in far eastern Syria, near the border with Iraq.
CHINA The Wanda Group yesterday denied a report by a U.S. website that its chairman was detained by Chinese authorities that prompted a plunge in the share price of a Hong Kong subsidiary.
THAILAND Interpol has issued an international request for the arrest of the billionaire heir to the Red Bull energy drink fortune, stepping up the hunt for the fugitive Thai playboy wanted in a 2012 hit-and-run incident that left a traffic policeman dead in Bangkok.
INDONESIA A would-be suicide bomber was sentenced to seven and a half years prison for plotting to bomb a guard-changing ceremony at Indonesia’s presidential palace in Jakarta, her lawyer said yesterday.
YEMEN The Saudi-led coalition battling rebels in Yemen says an airstrike that killed at least 14 civilians, including eight members of a single family, was the result of a “technical mistake.”
BRITAIN-EUROPEAN UNION Brexit negotiator David Davis says Britain wants to determine a future trade relationship with the bloc in lockstep with obtaining an orderly separation from it. The EU, however, wants to have “sufficient progress” on a clear divorce first with Britain before looking at a future relationship.
SPAIN The pro-independence ruling coalition in Catalonia is submitting a bill to the regional parliament that aims to serve as a transitional constitution should a controversial vote to secede from Spain succeed.
GUATEMALA Two days after prosecutors announced they would seek to lift Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales’ immunity, he ordered the expulsion of the head of a highly praised U.N. anti-corruption commission and plunged into a faceoff with the nation’s top court and the international community.
COLOMBIA’s largest rebel movement has initiated the launch of its political party, vowing to upend the country’s traditional conservatism with the creation of an alternative leftist coalition.
