World briefs

SOUTH KOREAN President Moon Jae-in said yesterday the country’s 2015 agreement with Japan to settle a decades-long impasse over Korean women forced into wartime sexual slavery was seriously flawed. 

VIETNAM Courts have handed down harsh prison sentences to two dozen people after finding them guilty of terrorism and subversion, including in a bombing linked to an exiled group, state media reported yesterday.

RUSSIA President Vladimir Putin says Russia’s actions in Syria have demonstrated the power of the nation’s modernized military to the world. He said more than 48,000 Russian troops who took part in the Syria campaign were fighting for their “homeland, for a just and fair cause.”

MYANMAR A court yesterday dropped additional charges against two foreign journalists and their local staff who were arrested in October for allegedly flying a drone over the parliament.

AFGHANISTAN Authorities say an attack on a Shiite Muslim cultural center in the Afghan capital Kabul has left at least 41 people dead and 84 wounded. Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said an unknown number of suicide attackers set off an explosion outside the center before carrying out an attack inside.

TURKEY President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he wants to mend strained ties with several European nations, saying Turkey is forced to “decrease the number of enemies and increase friends.” In comments published in Hurriyet newspaper yesterday, Erdogan describes the leaders of Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium as “old friends.”

ZIMBABWE A former general who led the ouster of Zimbabwe’s founding leader has been sworn in as vice president.

UKRAINE State authorities and Russian-backed separatist rebels have conducted the biggest exchange of prisoners since the start of an armed conflict in the country’s east, marking a sign of progress in the implementation of a 2015 peace deal.