World briefs

CAMBODIA’s Supreme Court ordered the country’s main opposition party (leader pictured) to be dissolved yesterday, dealing one of the most crushing blows yet to democratic aspirations in the increasingly oppressive Southeast Asian state.

MALAYSIA Prosecutors in the Malaysian trial of two women accused of killing the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader could finish their case in the second quarter of next year, defense lawyers said yesterday as another week of testimony concluded.

INDONESIA’s anti-graft commission said yesterday it will declare the speaker of parliament a fugitive if he doesn’t turn himself in after being accused of involvement in the theft of USD170 million of public funds.

JAPAN-N. KOREA Japan yesterday handed over three North Korean crew members who were rescued from a capsized fishing boat to a North Korean vessel that will return them home, officials said.

SYRIA Activists and a monitoring group say almost two dozen civilians have been killed in the last three days of fighting in the suburb of the capital, Damascus, along with dozens of government forces and rebels.

ZIMBABWE President Robert Mugabe was shown meeting yesterday with the army commander who put him under house arrest, as negotiations with a South African delegation and a Catholic priest at the state house pushed for a resolution to the political turmoil and the likely end to Mugabe’s decades-long rule. 

POLAND Two prominent members of the Polish government have expressed support for destroying the Palace of Culture, a Stalinist-era skyscraper that dominates Warsaw’s skyline and stands as a symbol of the country’s former subservience to Moscow.

GREECE-MACEDONIA Police blocked some 200 migrants and asylum-seekers Wednesday from leaving a city in northern Greece for the Macedonian border in hopes of traveling on to other European Union countries.

SPAIN The fugitive leader of Catalonia’s secessionist movement said that he will repeat as his party’s leading candidate in upcoming elections for the Spanish region while he fights extradition from Belgium. 

VENEZUELA’s ousted chief prosecutor yesterday asked the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into President Nicolas Maduro and four other senior officials for alleged crimes against humanity.