World briefs

CHINA-S.KOREA Chinese President Xi Jinping told his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in yesterday that Beijing wants to improve ties that have nosedived over China’s objections to the deployment of an American anti-missile system. 

INDONESIA’s top court yesterday ruled against petitioners seeking to make gay sex and sex outside marriage illegal in a victory for the country’s besieged LGBT minority.

INDIA Against the backdrop of a bitterly fought local election, India is witnessing the unusual spectacle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi locked in a bitter verbal duel with his predecessor and accusing the opposition of holding secret meetings with Pakistani officials to impact the vote.

IRAN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is warning that Iran may be defying a U.N. call to halt ballistic missile development even as it complies with the nuclear deal with six world powers. 

YEMEN Suspected Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen have killed at least 23 people, including prisoners, and wounded dozens in the rebel-held capital, Sanaa, rebel officials and eyewitnesses said.

SYRIA At the doors of the Syrian capital, children with wrinkled faces and arms like sticks are going hungry because President Bashar Assad’s forces, supported by Russia and Iran, are blocking trucks filled with humanitarian relief.

ROMANIA A coffin carrying the body of Romania’s late King Michael I arrived at the Royal Palace in Bucharest, where it was met by applause and will lie in state ahead of his funeral this weekend.

POLAND’s new prime minister made his debut yesterday at a European Union summit, a first test of whether the Western-educated former banker can bridge a deepening rift between his right-wing government and Brussels.

FRANCE Authorities say there has been a “serious rail accident” in southern France involving a school bus and a regional train.

ECUADOR’s vice president was sentenced to six years in prison after a court convicted him of illicit association in a scheme to accept bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.