IN BRIEF (Page 12)

United Nations

Chinese elected to head UNIDO

Li Yong, China's vice-minister of finance, was elected to the post of director-general of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization at a board session on Monday. Li, born in October 1951, is a senior Chinese economic and financial policymaker and a member of the central bank's monetary policy committee.

Pakistan

Treason trial for Musharraf

Pakistan's new government intends to put former military dictator Pervez Musharraf on trial on charges of high treason, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Monday, in a move likely to anger the country's powerful armed forces. The charges being considered against Musharraf relate to his declaration of a state of emergency in 2007 and the suspension of constitutional rights that followed.

Syria

Decision to arm rebels attacked

A decision by backers of the Syrian revolt against President Bashar al-Assad to step up assistance to the rebels will only prolong the country's bloody war, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said on Monday. "Two days ago, a conference (of the Friends of Syria group) was held in Doha. They emerged with a clear decision to arm the opposition. ... This will only prolong the crisis," Muallem said.

Italy

Berlusconi gets seven years

Judges in a Milan court gave their verdict on Monday at a trial in which former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was convicted of paying for sex with a minor and abusing the powers of his office to cover it up. Berlusconi was sentenced to seven years in prison and banned from holding public office in the prostitution case, but the ruling is pending appeal.

United Kingdom

Man held over Alps killings

British police said on Monday they have arrested a 54-year-old man in connection with the murders of three members of an Iraqi-British family and a French cyclist in the French Alps last year. The man was detained on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder in a "pre-planned arrest" in Surrey, outside London, where the al-Hilli family lived, a police statement said.

Lebanon

12 soldiers killed in clashes

Twelve soldiers have been killed in clashes with supporters of a radical Sunni cleric in southern Lebanon, the army said on Monday, in violence tied to rising sectarian tensions fanned by the Syrian conflict.

Reuters-AFP-AP

(China Daily 06/25/2013 page12)