IN BRIEF (Page 11)

India

Taxi firms banned after rape claim

New Delhi has decided to ban all unregistered Internet taxi firms after a female passenger said she was raped by a driver contracted to US online cab company Uber, an official said on Tuesday. The case has caused uproar after it emerged that the suspect had previously been charged for rape but had obtained a character reference signed by a police officer that appeared to have been forged. It has revealed a total failure to regulate the booming market for online taxi services in India.

Kashmir

Neighbors trade fire on border

The troops of India and Pakistan violated a cease-fire agreement and targeted each other's positions on the Line of Control dividing Kashmir on Monday evening, officials said on Tuesday. The two sides exchanged fire in Balakot sector of frontier Poonch district, about 185 kilometers southwest of Srinagar, capital of India-controlled Kashmir.

Syria

UN restarts food voucher program

The UN World Food Programme is restarting food aid for 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt after it received enough donations to fund the halted program. The WFP said on Dec 1 it was suspending the aid because it had run out of money. This meant electronic vouchers allowing refugees to buy food in stores were not validated for December, putting them at risk of hunger in winter.

Mongolia

New Cabinet to be elected

Mongolia's parliament began voting in a new cross-party Cabinet on Tuesday, its website said, as the sprawling, resource-rich nation struggles with stalling economic growth. The "super coalition" of 19 ministers is made up of four different political parties, representing the vast majority of the 76-member Great Hural, or parliament.

Netherlands

MH17 wreckage arrives in nation

Trucks carrying wreckage from Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crossed into the Netherlands overnight where investigators waited to try and rebuild the airliner almost five months after it crashed. The Boeing 777 came down in eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 people on board, two-thirds of them Dutch.

Ukraine

Talks delayed; cease-fire holds

Planned peace talks between Ukraine and rebels were postponed on Tuesday but a cease-fire appeared to be largely holding along the front line in the country's war-shattered east. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said talks with the insurgents involving Russian and European envoys in the Belarusian capital Minsk had been delayed and would probably not be held until Friday.

Reuters - AP - Xinhua - AFP

(China Daily 12/10/2014 page11)