IN BRIEF (Page 8)

United States

Russia accused of breaching treaties

The US is accusing Moscow of openly breaching Cold Warera treaties by developing what Russian President Vladimir Putin called a new generation of "invincible" hypersonic weapons and submarines. Putin unveiled the new arsenal on Thursday in a state of the nation address, challenging Washington to a new arms race ahead of a March 18 presidential election. He presented Russia's military efforts as a response to actions by the US, which last month unveiled plans to revamp its own nu-clear arsenal and develop new low-yield atomic weapons.

Venezuela

Govt postpones election to May

Venezuela will hold presidential elections on May 20, the president of the National Electoral Council, Tibisay Lucena, said on Thursday. The announcement came after the government and opposition parties agreed to push back the date from late April to late May. President Nicolas Maduro will be running for reelection as the candidate of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Azerbaijan

25 dead in drug rehab center fire

Twenty-five people perished in a fire which tore through a drug rehabilitation clinic in the Azerbaijani capital Baku early on Friday. Video footage broadcast on local television showed huge flames leaping through barred windows of a 1-story wooden hospital ward. It took nearly three hours for 10 squads of firefighters and rescuers from the emergencies ministry to extinguish the blaze, the APA news agency reported. President Ilham Aliyev has set up a governmental commission to probe the cause of the blaze.

(China Daily 03/03/2018 page8)