News In Brief

Ethiopia sets tentative August date
for elections
Reuters, Addis Ababa
Ethiopia’s upcoming national vote will probably be held on Aug. 16, the electoral board said on Wednesday, the first poll under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who has eased political restrictions and opened the economy since taking office in 2018.
Ethiopia’s 100 million people are seeing unprecedented political change, but Abiy’s reforms have also uncorked ethnic rivalries that have driven more than 2 million from their homes.

Australian student says N Korea forced him to admit spying
AFP, Seoul
An Australian student arrested for spying and expelled from North Korea last year said he was forced to write a false confession while held incommunicado.
Alek Sigley was studying modern Korean literature at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang when he went missing in June, sparking international alarm. Canberra has no diplomatic representation in Pyongyang and turned to Sweden, the protecting power for its citizens.

Romania reports outbreak of H5N8 bird flu
Reuters, Paris
Romania has reported an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N8 bird flu virus on a farm in the northern part of the country, the first such outbreak in nearly three years, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Wednesday.
The virus killed 11,190 birds out of a flock of 18,699 in the Maramures region near the borders with Ukraine and Hungary, the Paris-based OIE said, citing a report from Romania’s veterinary services.

India court confirms four men to hang for bus rape and murder
Reuters, New Delhi
India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed pleas for a review of the death sentence handed down to four men in the rape and murder of a young woman on a New Delhi bus, leaving an appeal to the president as their only possible recourse. The 2012 attack on the 23-year old physiotherapy student on the moving bus shocked India and led to tough new laws against sexual violence, including the death penalty for rape in some cases.