World briefs

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Yukiya Amano of Japan, waits for the start of the IAEA board of governors meeting at the International Center in Vienna, Austria, Monday, June 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)

NORTH KOREA The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog says the agency could resume work in North Korea “within weeks” to verify any possible agreement between Washington and Pyongyang. 

PHILIPPINES The country’s defense secretary said that authorities will standardize teaching in both public and private Islamic schools in the wake of a militant siege last year that raised fears of greater radicalization in the country.

JORDAN’s King Abdullah II yesterday accepted the resignation of his embattled prime minister and named a leading reformer in his place, hoping to quell the largest anti-government protests in recent years that are also seen as a potential challenge to his two-decade-old rule.

ISRAEL A top Cabinet minister yesterday rejected international criticism of Israel’s open-fire policies along the Gaza border, saying the disproportionate number of Palestinian casualties does not reflect the true story.

GREECE-TURKEY A lawyer representing eight Turkish servicemen who fled to Greece seeking asylum after the 2016 failed coup in Turkey says all his clients have been freed pending a ruling on their applications.

AUSTRIA-RUSSIA Russian President Vladimir Putin is traveling to Austria today. The visit, which marks the 50th anniversary of the start of Soviet gas deliveries to Austria, takes him to one of Europe’s more Russia-friendly countries at a time when relations between the European Union and Russia are at a low ebb.

FRANCE Financial prosecutors have opened an investigation after an anti-corruption association filed a complaint against French President Emmanuel Macron’s chief of staff.

GUATEMALA Rescuers used heavy machinery and shovels yesterday to search for survivors or victims of an eruption at Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire, and residents said they were caught unaware by fast-moving pyroclastic flows that killed at least 25 people and left authorities fearing the toll could go higher. 

US Frank Carlucci, who advocated an arms buildup in the 1980s and was an ambassador to Portugal in the mid-1970s, has died aged 87.