World briefs

MALAYSIA The cause of the death of the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader dominated the second day of the trial of two women accused of killing him at a busy airport terminal in Malaysia. Siti Aisyah of Indonesia and Doan Thi Huong of Vietnam have pleaded not guilty to charges they smeared the nerve agent VX on Kim’s face. 

PHILIPPINES Suspected communist rebels staged an attack on a police car in the central Philippines yesterday and two Swedish citizens and their driver in a passing van were wounded in the crossfire, police said.

THAILAND Police said yesterday they are seeking an international request for the arrest of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who is believed to be in England after fleeing to Dubai to evade a prison sentence.

MYANMAR A group of 20 foreign diplomats who visited Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where half a million ethnic Rohingya Muslims fled recent violence, have urged the government to allow access by humanitarian groups and by a United Nations fact-finding mission to investigate allegations of human rights violations.

NEPAL A 3-year-old girl has become Nepal’s new living goddess, revered by both Hindus and Buddhists in the Himalayan nation. Trishna Shakya was carried in a religious ceremony to a temple palace in the heart of the Nepalese capital where she is to live until just before puberty.

INDIA A group of rebels fighting Indian rule stormed a paramilitary camp near the airport in disputed Kashmir yesterday, in a brazen attack targeting one of the region’s most strategic and well-guarded zones that left at least four dead. Police said the militants breached multiple layers of high security.

GREECE Police announced they have arrested eight migrant traffickers who reportedly smuggled 38 migrants through Greece’s land border with Turkey. All the arrests were made in northern Greece, in four separate incidents.

SPAIN’s interior minister is accusing the pro-independence Catalan government of encouraging protests against Spanish police, saying they represent “totalitarianism” and “hatred.” He said Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont is responsible for the protests after demanding police leave the region following their violent crackdown on his attempt to hold an independence referendum. 

USA President Donald Trump came face to face with hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico yesterday after denouncing critics of the federal relief effort as “politically motivated ingrates” who need to step up their own response to the crisis.