World briefs

CHINA-VIETNAM Vietnam’s government stated its concerns to Ukraine over plastic globes being sold in the country that showed the Vietnamese province of Quang Ninh as Chinese territory.

JAPAN needs to bolster its missile defenses and its alliance with the United States, its government stressed yesterday in an annual defense review that judged North Korea to still be a serious threat.

MALAYSIA Lawyers for two Chilean tourists who could face death sentences if convicted of killing a man in Malaysia say the duo acted in self-defense and should be acquitted.

INDONESIA Police in the Indonesian part of Borneo island have arrested more than a dozen people suspected of starting forest fires that have killed four people in the past month. 

IRAN President Hassan Rouhani failed to convince parliament yesterday that his plans will pull the country out of an economic nosedive worsened by America’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, further isolating his relatively moderate administration amid nationwide anger.

YEMEN Three experts working for the U.N.’s top human rights body say the governments of Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia may have been responsible for war crimes including rape, torture, disappearances and “deprivation of the right to life”. 

EGYPT A court has sentenced six people to death for their roles in a 2016 militant attack on a security checkpoint north of Cairo that killed a policeman.

LITHUANIA’s president says that the European Union can’t turn its back on Turkey, adding that “it’s necessary to search for solutions to assist Turkey” to help curb terror threats and migration to Europe.

POLAND’s government unveiled yesterday details of a voluntary pension program intended to encourage many Poles to start saving and to protect low-earners from post-retirement poverty.

FRANCE’s high-profile environment minister unexpectedly announced his resignation live on national radio yesterday, lamenting the government’s lack of decisive action on green issues.

GREAT BRITAIN Protesters demanded Northern Ireland’s feuding political parties get back to governing, as the region matched a world record yesterday for the longest peacetime period without a government.

COLUMBIA will leave a South American bloc promoted by the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to counter U.S. influence in the region. Colombia’s President Ivan Duque said in a televised address that UNASUR is now “the greatest accomplice of the Venezuelan dictatorship.”