News in brief
AP, Kuala Lumpur
Zimbabwe’s 92-year-old strongman Robert Mugabe will pay a surprise one-day working visit to Malaysia on Friday, the Southeast Asian country said.
Malaysia’s government said late Thursday Mugabe will have a meeting with Prime Minister Najib Razak but otherwise gave scant details on the purpose of the rare visit or the reason for the last-minute notification.
The foreign ministry said it was the Zimbabwean president’s first working visit to Malaysia since 2000, but he has previously visited Malaysia and Singapore for medical procedures.
S Arabia urged to end child stonings, executions
Reuters, Geneva
A U.N. human rights watchdog called on Saudi Arabia on Friday to end “severe” discrimination against girls and to repeal laws that allow the stoning, amputation, flogging and execution of children.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child condemned the Saudi-led coalition’s air strikes in Yemen, which it said had killed and maimed hundreds of children, and its “use of starvation” as a tactic in that war against Iran-backed Houthis.
Pakistan bans ‘honour killings’
Reuters, Islamabad
Pakistan’s parliament unanimously passed a legislation against “honour killings” on Thursday, three months after the murder of outspoken social media star Qandeel Baloch.
A joint session of the lower and upper houses of parliament, broadcast live on television, approved the new anti-honour killing law, removing a loophole in existing law that allows killers to walk free after being pardoned by family members.
Debris of missing flight MH370 found
Reuters, Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia said on Friday that a piece of plane debris discovered in Mauritius was from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board. The Boeing 777 disappeared on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, sparking a two-year search has turned up few leads.
