World briefs

PHILIPPINES President Rodrigo Duterte came under renewed pressure yesterday to seek Chinese compliance to an arbitration ruling that invalidated China’s claims to much of the South China Sea two years ago but has been ignored by Beijing and remains unenforced.

VIETNAM A court in south central Vietnam sentenced six people to up to two-and-a-half years in prison yesterday after finding them guilty of throwing rocks, bricks and gas bombs at police in protests against a proposed law on special economic zones.

JAPAN Authorities raided the apartment of a nurse who’s in custody on suspicion of fatally poisoning at least two elderly patients at a terminal care hospital.

YEMEN An international rights group yesterday called for an investigation into alleged disappearances, torture and possible deaths in detention facilities run by the United Arab Emirates and its allied militias in southern Yemen as potential war crimes.

SYRIA Rebels have agreed to surrender the southern city of Daraa, the first to revolt against President Bashar Assad in Arab Spring-inspired protests earlier this decade, activists said yesterday.

FRANCE has taken in a group of 78 asylum-seekers, mainly from Eritrea and Sudan, after their charity rescue ship was blocked form ports in Italy and Malta.

BRITAIN The government released detailed plans yesterday for what it called a “principled pragmatic and ambitious” Brexit — plans that already triggered the resignation of two top ministers and split the governing Conservative Party. 

ARGENTINA A Spanish fishing trawler sank in rough weather off the coast of Argentina and at least one crewmember died, Argentina’s Navy said. Twenty-five crewmembers were rescued and one was missing.

MEXICO President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he will cancel the pending purchase by Mexico’s navy of eight armed Lockheed Martin MH-60R helicopters from the U.S. government.

EL SALVADOR’s Supreme Court has ordered President Salvador Sanchez Ceren to present any information he has on the fate of a South African diplomat who was kidnapped by leftist guerrillas in 1979.