World briefs

VIETNAM A senior executive for an international human rights group was detained by authorities yesterday as she arrived in the capital to attend a World Economic Forum meeting and is expected to be deported.

PHILIPPINES Rodrigo Duterte has decided not to seek the arrest of an opposition senator, who has taken refuge in the Senate, without a court warrant. 

PAKISTAN The government of Pakistan’s newly elected prime minister removed a minority Ahmadi Muslim from a recently established economic council because of opposition from hard-line Islamists.

TURKMENISTAN has inaugurated a large gas-powered electricity plant that is expected to sell about 3 billion kilowatt-hours of power a year to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

IRAQ Security forces were deployed on the streets of Basra on Saturday, a day after protesters in the southern city stormed the Iranian consulate and torched government buildings in violence that rocked the country’s oil-exporting Shiite heartland.

YEMEN The U.N. special envoy to Yemen sought to downplay the significance of the failure of peace talks to start, saying that he would head back to Yemen and neighboring Oman “within days” to try and agree on a new date.

KOSOVO Dissidents blocked roads and burned tires on a planned route by Serbia’s president in the former Serbian province yesterday, further fueling tensions between the two Balkan foes. 

SWENDEN went to the polls yesterday in a general election that is expected to be one of the most unpredictable and thrilling races in the Scandinavian country for decades amid heated debate on immigration.

BRITAIN Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has compared Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan for Brexit to putting the country’s constitution in a “suicide vest” and handing the detonator to the European Union. 

BRAZIL The man suspected of stabbing Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro was moved to a prison in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. 

US A roaring wildfire that shut down a stretch of a major interstate near the California-Oregon border exploded in size as crews on Saturday scrambled to prevent flames from reaching rural communities.