World Briefs

SAUDI ARABIA U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested that “rogue killers” could be responsible for the mysterious disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an explanation offering Saudi Arabia a possible path out of a diplomatic firestorm. 

NEW ZEALAND’s conservative opposition party was in turmoil yesterday after one of its own lawmakers accused leader Simon Bridges of corruption for hiding a donation from a wealthy Chinese businessman.

INDIA A court in northern India sentenced a Hindu guru and 14 followers to life imprisonment yesterday in the deaths of four women and a child at his sprawling ashram.

IRAN Militants abducted 14 members of a border security force near the Pakistan border yesterday in the latest blow to the powerful Revolutionary Guard.

SOMALIA The U.S. military yesterday announced its deadliest airstrike against the al-Shabab extremist group in Somalia in nearly a year, killing about 60 fighters.

RUSSIA-UKRAINE The Russian Orthodox Church has decided to sever ties with the leader of the worldwide Orthodox community after his decision to grant Ukrainian clerics independence from the Moscow Patriarchate. The Orthodox Church in Ukraine has been under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church since the late 1600s.

BRITAIN The government will have to spend an extra 19 billion pounds (MOP200 billion) a year on public services by the year 2022-23 if it’s to deliver on Prime Minister Theresa May’s promise to end austerity, a well-respected think-tank said. 

GUATEMALA Hundreds of Hondurans hoping to reach the United States bedded down for the night in the Guatemalan town of Esquipulas after that country’s authorities blinked first in attempts to halt their advance. U.S. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, threatened yesterday to cut aid to Honduras if it doesn’t stop the impromptu caravan of migrants.

VENEZUELA A massive power outage has left roughly half of Venezuela without electricity.

Power Minister Luis Motta Dominguez says the blackout started Monday evening with an explosion at a power station in the northern state of Carabobo. It left at least 11 of Venezuela’s 23 states in the dark.