IN BRIEF (Page 12)

China

'UN report not the solution'

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday that submitting human rights issues to international criminal courts does not improve the situation in the respective country, in response to a report from the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "China has always advocated resolving human rights differences through constructive dialogue and cooperation based on equality and mutual respect," Hua said. Pyongyang denied the report, saying that it was an "instrument of political plot" and "a product of politicization of human rights on the part of EU and Japan in alliance with the US hostile policy".

India

Death commuted for ex-PM killers

The nation's Supreme Court commuted the death sentences against three men for killing former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi to life imprisonment on Tuesday because of an 11-year delay in deciding on their petitions for mercy. Gandhi was killed by an ethnic Tamil suicide bomber while campaigning in an election in the southern Indian town of Sriperumbudur in May 1991.

Ukraine

3 protesters killed in Kiev

At least three anti-government protesters were killed and around 150 others were injured, some seriously, in fresh clashes between police and demonstrators in Kiev on Tuesday, opposition medics said. "At least three people have died. All of them had gunshot wounds," said Oleg Musiy, head of a medical team that runs first-aid centers for protesters. Another medic at the opposition-run field hospital said most of the injuries were caused by stun grenades.

China Daily-AP-Reuters

(China Daily 02/19/2014 page12)