IN BRIEF (Page 12)

The Philippines

Military deal with US expected

The United States and the Philippines were expected to sign a new 10-year security agreement on Monday allowing US forces an increased military presence in the Southeast Asian country, senior government sources said. The agreement is renewable based on the needs of the two allies in the Asia-Pacific region, one of the sources said, asking for anonymity because of lack of authority to release details.

Ukraine

Insurgents show captured officers

Pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine have shown journalists what they said were three captured Ukrainian security service officers, bloodied and blindfolded with packing tape. Stripped of their trousers and shoes, the captives sat with heads bowed in the security service headquarters in the city of Slaviansk early on Sunday morning. There are now more than a dozen hostages being held in Slaviansk. The self-proclaimed mayor of the city has accused them of being NATO spies.

Germany

Berliners block far-right march

Thousands of Berliners blocked a group of right-wing demonstrators from staging a march through the German capital. Police said about 2,000 people stood in the way of the planned route of a demonstration organized on Saturday by the far-right National Democratic Party. The NPD had planned to march through the Kreuzberg district, which has a large immigrant population. Germany's security services said the party has a racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic agenda.

India

Anti-ballistic missile tested

India successfully test-fired an anti-ballistic missile on Sunday that it said was capable of intercepting targets outside Earth's atmosphere, a major step in development of a missile defense system that is available to only a handful of nations. Currently, only a small club of nations, including the United States, Russia and Israel, possesses an anti-ballistic missile system.

Syria

Chemical arms not handed over

Syria still holds nearly 8 percent of its chemical weapons arsenal as the deadline expired on Sunday for it to be handed over, the task force charged with the operation said. "We are talking about the remaining 7.8 percent of chemical weapon material that is currently still in country in the one particular site," Sigrid Kaag, head of the combined Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-UN task team, told a news conference.

AP-Reuters-AFP

(China Daily 04/28/2014 page12)