World briefs

HONG KONG An Indian man sought in his home country for a long list of alleged offenses including terrorism appeared in a Hong Kong court on robbery charges.

THAILAND At least 42 prospective political parties have submitted registrations to Thailand’s Election Commission after the military government that has run the country since 2014 allowed new parties to form ahead of polls supposed to be held by next February.

MALAYSIA The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 by a U.S. company will likely end in June, a Malaysian official said, as families of passengers marked the fourth anniversary of the plane’s disappearance on the weekend.

KOREA South Korea’s president will send a delegation led by his national security director to North Korea this week for talks on how to ease nuclear tensions and help arrange the restart of dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington. More on p13

THE MALDIVES government has disputed claims by the Japanese foreign ministry that a Maldivian-flagged ship transferred goods to a North Korean-flagged tanker at sea in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution.

INDIA Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party ended 25 years of uninterrupted communist party rule in a northeastern state and consolidated its position in two other states in key provincial elections.

SYRIA Troops and allied militias have captured a number of villages and towns in a rebel-held region near the capital, in the largest advance since a wide-scale offensive began last month, state media and activists reported yesterday.

SLOVAKIA Authorities have renewed their investigation into threats by a businessman against an investigative journalist who was shot dead last week with his fiancee, the country’s prosecutor general said yesterday.

GERMANY Chancellor Angela Merkel cleared the last major hurdle on her path to a fourth term yesterday, after members of the center-left Social Democrats voted in favor of continuing their governing coalition with her conservative bloc. 

VENEZUELA’s government has agreed to delay presidential elections by a month as part of a last-minute deal with a few of the political parties seeking to unseat President Nicolas Maduro.

US Local governments are suing a U.S. agency demanding a fix to a decades-old problem of sewage flowing downhill from Mexico and spilling onto U.S. wetlands and beaches.