Briefly

ISRAEL

Chance now opens for Netanyahu's rivals

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's deadline to form a new government expired on Wednesday and President Reuven Rivlin was poised to ask another candidate to try, inviting two of the long-serving leader's top opponents for talks. Netanyahu, 71, has been in office since 2009 and also served for three years in the 1990s. His 28-day mandate to put together a coalition ran out at midnight after he failed to agree terms with potential right-wing partners, opening the way for Rivlin to assign the task to another member of parliament. Rivlin met with the two main candidates for forming a government－opposition leader Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett.

AFGHANISTAN

Heavy flooding claims at least 37 lives

Heavy rains brought severe flooding to nine provinces around Afghanistan in recent days, killing at least 37 people, some of them children, officials said on Tuesday. Heavy flooding compounded by mudslides often threatens remote areas of Afghanistan, where infrastructure is poor, especially during the spring and summer months. Powerful floodwaters in western Herat Province that began on Sunday killed 24 people around the province, said provincial governor's spokesman Jailani Farhad.

UNITED STATES

Trump launches own Twitter-like platform

Former US president Donald Trump has launched an online platform aimed at directly communicating with his supporters, months after his various social media accounts were banned over allegations that he used the tools to disseminate election falsehoods. Dubbed "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump", the platform much resembles Twitter, which alongside Facebook banned Trump from posting messages in the aftermath of the Jan 6 Capitol riot that the former president was accused of inciting. The site now contains what appears to be archived posts dating back to March 24, with the latest one, dated on Tuesday, being a video that condemns Twitter for silencing Trump's voice.

BELGIUM

Boundary stone shift stirs up history

A Belgian landowner risked triggering an international incident by moving an old stone boundary marker that has denoted his country's border with France since the 1820 Treaty of Kortrijk. According to the mayor of the Belgian town of Erquelines, David Lavaux, the bold proprietor had underestimated the implications of pushing the historic marker back two meters and 20 centimeters. The discreet land-grab was spotted around a month ago by members of an association of history enthusiasts from the French side of the border. War is not imminent, however. According to Lavaux, an appointment has been made with the landowner to resolve the issue. "We'll see him before the end of the week and if he replaces the stone, we'll make no more of it," he said.

MOROCCO

Malian woman gives birth to nine babies

A Malian woman gave birth to nonuplets in Morocco on Tuesday and all nine babies are "doing well", her government said, although Moroccan authorities had yet to confirm what would be an extremely rare case. Mali's government flew 25-year-old Halima Cisse, a woman from the north of the West African state, to Morocco for better care on March 30. She was initially believed to have been carrying septuplets. Cases of women successfully carrying septuplets to term are rare－and nonuplets even rarer. Mali's Health Ministry said in a statement that Cisse had given birth to five girls and four boys by Caesarean section.

Agencies - Xinhua