World briefs

US-CHINA The Trump administration has renewed its threat to place 25 percent tariffs on USD50 billion of Chinese goods in retaliation for what it says are China’s unfair trade practices.

ITALY The specter of a financial crisis came back to haunt Italy yesterday, as its markets plunged on fears that it is heading toward another election that could shape up to be a referendum on whether to stay in the common currency.

INDIA Tony Fernandes, the chief of AirAsia, is being investigated by the Indian federal police for allegedly paying bribes to influence local policy, an Indian official told reporters. India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has named Fernandes and other officials from AirAsia and its Indian unit in its investigation

MYANMAR  Ethnic cleansing targeting Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar has not stopped despite growing condemnation from the international community, the Trump administration said yesterday.

INDONESIA At least 10 passengers on a flight preparing to take off from Borneo island were injured, most of them with broken bones and head wounds, after panicked ensued when a man claimed there was a bomb on board, Indonesian police said yesterday.

BRAZIL’s government declared the end of a devastating truckers’ strike on several occasions over the past week. And yet protests continue for a ninth day and much of Latin America’s largest economy remains strangled.

 ISRAEL jets bombed targets in the Gaza Strip hours after militants from the territory fired more than 25 mortar shells toward communities in southern Israel in what appeared to be the largest single barrage since the 2014 war. 

LIBYA Rival Libyan leaders meeting in Paris yesterday tentatively agreed on a roadmap leading to parliamentary and presidential elections on Dec. 10, but the plan faces major obstacles in the North African country, where rival authorities rely on an array of unruly militias.

RWANDA’s government defended its USD39 million sponsorship deal with the Arsenal football club as some aid donors and rights activists raised an outcry. “Visit Rwanda” will be emblazoned on the left sleeve of players in Arsenal’s first, under-23 and women’s teams.

ITALY Officials at the Pompeii archaeological site have announced a dramatic new discovery, the skeleton of a man crushed by an enormous stone while trying to flee the explosion of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D.