IN BRIEF (Page 11)

Ukraine

Ukraine inspects aid convoy

Ukrainian border guards have started inspections of a Russian humanitarian aid convoy on the border between the two countries, authorities said. According to the press service of Ukraine's anti-terror operation, 41 Ukrainian frontier guards and 18 customs officers began working at the site on Friday morning. Once the cargo inspection is completed, the humanitarian aid will go to Lugansk city in eastern Ukraine, where people are suffering from shortages of food, water and medicine, the press service said on its official Facebook page.

Malaysia

MH370-related theft probed

Malaysian police have arrested a bank officer and her husband over allegations they stole more than $30,000 from the accounts of four passengers aboard missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, an official said on Friday. The couple has been in police custody since Thursday on suspicion of withdrawing $34,850 from the accounts of two Malaysian and two Chinese MH370 victims. Police also are looking for a Pakistani man who is believed to have received part of the money in his account through an online transfer.

Pakistan

Taliban claims air base attacks

The Pakistani Taliban on Friday said it was behind attacks on two military air bases in the country's restive southwest that left 12 militants dead. Gunmen armed with automatic weapons and grenades, and wearing suicide vests tried to storm the Pakistan air force's Samungli air base and Khalid military air base, both in the Baluchistan provincial capital of Quetta, late on Thursday.

Indonesia

US pair charged with murder

Indonesian police charged a US couple with murder on Friday after the body of the woman's 62-year-old mother was found stuffed in a suitcase on the resort island of Bali. Heather Mack, 19, and her boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, 21, both from Chicago, were arrested on Wednesday in Bali's Kuta area a day after the body of Sheila von Wiese-Mack was found inside the trunk of a taxi parked in front of the St Regis Bali Resort. The charges are based on witnesses and crime-scene evidence.

Nigeria

Sect said to be abducting boys

Suspected Islamist Boko Haram fighters have abducted dozens of boys and men in a raid on a remote village in northeast Nigeria, loading them onto trucks and driving them off, witnesses who fled the violence said on Friday. Several witnesses who arrived as refugees in the city of Maiduguri said the militants had also killed six older men in last Sunday's raid on the village of Doron Baga.

AFP - AP - Reuters - Xinhua

(China Daily 08/16/2014 page11)