Briefly

RUSSIA

German diplomats to go in tit-for-tat move

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday announced the expulsion of two diplomats at the German embassy in Russia in a retaliatory move. The ministry summoned German Ambassador to Russia Geza Andreas von Geyr and informed him of the decision to declare the two "personae non gratae". This move was Russia's "symmetrical response" to Germany's hostile decision to expel two Russian diplomats on the basis of an "unfair and biased" Berlin high court ruling in which Russian citizen V.A. Sokolov was convicted of murdering Georgian national Zelimkhan Khangoshvili. The ministry also said it strongly rejected the unfounded accusations that "Russia's state structures" were involved in the crime, adding that it would respond proportionately to any future confrontational activity from Berlin.

EAST TIMOR

US man gets 12 years for child sex abuse

A court in East Timor jailed a defrocked priest from the United States for 12 years on Tuesday, his lawyer said, after he was charged with sexually abusing more than a dozen girls over decades. The case was the first time that allegations of sexual abuse perpetrated by a priest have gone to trial in the staunchly Catholic country. Richard Daschbach, 84, founded a shelter in the early 1990s for orphans, vulnerable children and victims of abuse. Daschbach, who had faced 14 counts of sexual abuse of children younger than 14, as well as one charge of child pornography and domestic violence, is in detention.

Xinhua - Agencies