IN BRIEF (Page 12)

Poland

Govt buys Patriot missile systems

Poland and the United States signed a $4.75 billion agreement on Wednesday on the sale of Raytheon Co's Patriot missile defense system to Warsaw. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the first Patriot systems will come to Poland in 2022 and the following ones in 2024. He did not specify their number.

Yemen

Saudi Arabia, UAE give $930m in aid

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates gave $930 million to UN humanitarian efforts in Yemen on Tuesday as a war between a Saudi-led military coalition and Yemen's Shiite rebels enters its fourth year. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman presented the previously pledged donation to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as they discussed Yemen. Yemen is in the grips of a stalemated war and what the UN calls the worst humanitarian crisis, with 22 million people needing aid.

Australia

'Unfair contracts' for Facebook users

By signing up to Facebook users may be unwittingly signing unfair contracts, the head of Australia's competition watchdog has warned. Rod Sims, chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said that the Cambridge Analytica scandal was good "in a sense" because it brought "how much data Facebook has" and how they can use it.

United Kingdom

Teacher jailed over 'army of kids'

A British supporter of the Islamic State group who tried to recruit more than 100 children into an "army" of extremists to carry out a wave of attacks across London was jailed for a minimum of 25 years on Tuesday. Umar Haque, 25, showed the children beheading videos and other violent militant propaganda, forced them to re-enact deadly attacks on the British capital and made them role-play attacking police officers.

France

3-year-olds to attend school

President Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday that school will become obligatory for all children from age 3, instead of 6, as part of his education plans. The move to lower the threshold would affect only a minority of families, with 97.6 percent of French children already enrolled in school at age 3, Education Ministry figures show.

India

Life sentence for trafficking kids

Two brothel owners have been jailed for life for the trafficking, rape and sexual abuse of children, an unprecedented sentence in a country where fewer than two in five trafficking cases ends in a conviction. According to government data, less than half of the more than 8,000 human trafficking cases reported in 2016 were filed in court by the police and the conviction rate in cases that did go to trial was 28 percent.

(China Daily 03/29/2018 page12)