IN BRIEF (Page 12)

Finland

Border checks for Trump-Putin summit

Finland indicated on Monday that it would reinstate border controls for travelers from Schengen countries for four days from Friday, coinciding with a summit in Helsinki between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "In order to increase security, we have assessed that reinstating control in our internal borders would be justified," said Kimmo Elomaa, a senior official at the Ministry of Interior.

Israel

Arabic may end as official language

A controversial bill seeking to stop using Arabic in any official publication in Israel will be brought for final approval next week, local media reported on Monday. The new bill, pushed forward by Jewish nationalist lawmakers, seeks to strip Arabic of its status as an official language and anchor Israel as a Jewish state in law. With Arabs composing some 20 percent of its population, Israel currently has two official languages: Hebrew and Arabic.

India

Biggest smartphone factory opened

Samsung opened the world's largest smartphone factory in India on Monday, a move Prime Minister Narendra Modi said would help transform Asia's third-largest economy into a global manufacturing hub. Modi and Moon Jae-in, president of the Republic of Korea, inaugurated the giant assembling plant - an expansion of an existing Samsung facility - in the city of Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi.

Czech Republic

Minister steps down over plagiarism

Justice Minister Tatana Mala stepped down after 13 days in the post following allegations that she plagiarized parts of her university thesis. Mala announced her resignation on Monday, maintaining that she is innocent, and the accusations of plagiarism leveled against her were just a campaign. Czech Radio reported last week that Mala's thesis contained undeclared passages from another student's published work and in one instance she even copied the original text along with two typing errors.

Switzerland

Six being probed over 1MDB scandal

Switzerland is investigating six people on suspicion of bribing foreign officials and other offenses, as part of a money laundering investigation into Malaysian state fund 1MDB, the Swiss attorney general's office said on Tuesday. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is not one of the "public officials under accusation", the statement said.

Reuters - Afp - Xinhua

(China Daily 07/11/2018 page12)