World briefs

VIETNAM State media is reporting that fire alarms weren’t heard in a large condominium complex in southern Vietnam where a fire killed at least 13 people. It said police rescued more than 100 residents while more than 1,000 escaped on their own.

MYANMAR’s parliament has begun the process of selecting a replacement for President Htin Kyaw, who retired this week with ill health, by filling the empty seat of one of the country’s three vice presidents.

CHINA Two Chinese sailors have been rescued more than 50 hours after their sand dredger capsized off Malaysia’s southern coast, a maritime official said.

AUSTRALIA Volunteers in western Australia have managed to rescue only five of 150 short-finned pilot whales that became stranded on a beach.

PAKISTAN A court has acquitted twenty people suspected of involvement in the lynching and burning alive of a Christian couple accused of blasphemy in 2014.

AFGHANISTAN A car bombing outside a sports stadium in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province killed 13 people and wounded 40 others, an official said. 

INDIA A powerful politician was sentenced to 14 years in prison for embezzling USD570,000) from a state government’s treasury while he was the state’s top elected official. 

CROATIA Thousands of far-right supporters marched Saturday in downtown Zagreb to protest an international convention they said indirectly legalizes gay marriages and gives rights to transgender people.

GERMANY Carles Puigdemont, the fugitive ex-leader of Catalonia and ardent separatist, was arrested by German police on an international warrant as he tried to enter the country from Denmark. 

BRITAIN A teenage Iraqi asylum-seeker who told police he had been trained by the Islamic State group has been sentenced to at least 34 years in prison for bombing a London subway train and injuring 51 people.

BRAZIL Officials say seven suspected drug traffickers have been killed in a shootout with police in a Rio de Janeiro slum.

PERU A Peruvian judge has barred recently resigned President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski from leaving the South American nation for 18 months while he is investigated for possible money laundering.