IN BRIEF (Page 12)

Brazil

Enquiry ordered into top ministers

Brazil's Supreme Court announced on Tuesday that corruption investigations have been ordered for eight ministers and dozens more top politicians in a sweeping decision that affects almost one third of President Michel Temer's Cabinet and many of his top allies. In total, 108 people will be investigated.

Thailand

Over 1,000 Thais stranded at airport

More than one thousand Thais, who paid for a trip to Osaka by charter flights, found they were swindled after they arrived at Bangkoks airport on Tuesday night. The tourists paid between $281 and $580 to a company for a trip to Japan on April 13-15 but found there was no staff from the company receiving them at the airport as promised, Bangkok Post reported.

Iran

Ahmadinejad to run for president

Iran's former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the surprise move on Wednesday of registering for next month's presidential election. Ahmadinejad had previously said he would not stand after being advised by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying he would instead support his former deputy Hamid Baghaie, who also registered on Wednesday.

South Korea

Novelist banned for insulting statue

Japanese novelist Yasutaka Tsutsui has sparked outrage by recklessly insulting a "comfort women" statue erected in South Korea. "We are very disappointed with his personal view and feel both anger and sadness at the same time", Tsutsui's publishing company said. The company said it has ceased sales of his most recent book. "That girl is cute," Tsutsui said on April 4 in referring to the statue.

The 82-year-old writer then encouraged followers to ejaculate on the statue.

United States

Plea on track to break record

A teenager from Reno, Nevada, is on track to break the record of the most retweeted tweet, in a quest to get a year of free chicken nuggets. The retweet record, which stands at 3.3 million, is held by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres for a group selfie taken by Bradley Cooper at the Oscars award show in 2014. The plea by Carter Wilkerson, 16, had 2.6 million retweets as of Tuesday, fewer than 1 million away from breaking the record.

Australia

Database details fishing since 1950

Australian researchers have compiled an unparalleled database detailing global fishing since 1950. The database was based on more than 867 million fishing records from 1950 to 2014. During the 65 years covered by the records, fishers from 193 countries caught 5.8 trillion tons of fish from 1443 different species, 892 million tons of which was taken illegally.