World briefs

INDONESIA The Indonesian state airline company Garuda began daily flights between the island of Bali and Dili the capital of East Timor on Friday. “I hope that the inauguration of this Denpasar –
Dili link serves to deepen the relations between the two countries across the areas of the economy, tourism and in social and cultural terms,” the Garuda Executive Director, Emirsyah Satar, said by statement.

NORTH KOREA may be capable of fielding a nuclear-armed missile that could reach U.S. soil, but because it has not tested such a weapon the odds of it being effective are “pretty darn low,” the commander of U.S. forces in South Korea said Friday.

INDIA Nine people are dead after a passenger bus traveling overnight in India’s remote northeast swerves over a bridge and breaks through the railing to fall into a marshy ravine before dawn yesterday, police say.

IRAN hanged a woman on Saturday who was convicted of murdering a man she alleged was trying to rape her, drawing swift international condemnation for a prosecution several countries described as flawed. Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged at dawn for premeditated murder, the official IRNA news agency reported. The UN as well as Amnesty International and other human rights groups had called on Iran’s judiciary to halt the execution, which was carried out after the country’s Supreme Court upheld the verdict. The victim’s family could have saved Jabbari’s life by accepting blood money but they refused to do so.

BOTSWANA’s ruling party has won re-election despite a vigorous challenge from the opposition, extending its decades-old hold on the southern African nation, an election official said yesterday.

UKRAINE Voters in Ukraine headed to the polls yesterday to elect a new parliament, overhauling a legislature tainted by its association with ousted President Viktor Yanukovych. The election is set to usher in a contingent of largely pro-Western lawmakers. President Petro Poroshenko’s party has campaigned on an ambitious reform agenda and is expected to get the largest share of the vote, but there is a strong likelihood it will need to rule in a coalition.

USA The nurse who has been quarantined at a New Jersey hospital because she had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa is criticizing the way her case has been handled, raising concerns from humanitarian and human rights groups over unclear policies for the newly launched program.

USA A newly hired teacher who confronted a gunman is being hailed as a hero after a deadly shooting rampage in the cafeteria of a Washington state high school. First-year social studies teacher Megan Silberberger intervened in the attack on Friday at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, teachers union president Randy Davis says. The attacker killed one female student on Friday and seriously wounded four others — including two of his cousins — before he died of what police said was a self-inflicted wound.