IN BRIEF (Page 12)

Israel

Olmert released from prison

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert was released on parole on Sunday from a prison in Ramle, near Tel Aviv, after serving 16 months in jail for corruption. Olmert was found guilty in 2014 of accepting bribes from real estate developers when he was Jerusalem's mayor, before his 2006-09 term as prime minister and head of a centrist political party. On Sunday, a parole board decided to cut short his 27-month term, a common practice in Israel for prisoners who have not committed violent crimes.

Myanmar

Security forces on the alert

Myanmar security forces have been put on high alert in Maungtaw, northern Rakhine state, following spate of killings by armed men, an official report said on Sunday. In the past two weeks, six civilians have been murdered and two have gone missing or been abducted. The incidents have prompted nearly 200 villagers to flee the area. Security has been tightened near villages in Maungtaw.

Mexico

19 die as police, armed gang clash

Mexican authorities said that at least 19 people died in clashes involving armed men and security forces in the gang-plagued northwestern state of Sinaloa, where homicides have spiked dramatically following the capture and extradition to the United States of convicted drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. The violence began with a shooting om Friday that killed two men near a department store in the town of Villa Union, 24 kilometers southeast of the beach resort of Mazatlan.

Dr Congo

Govt says Ebola outbreak over

The Democratic Republic of the Congo's health minister has declared an end to the country's Ebola outbreak. Oly Ilunga Kalenga said in a statement on Saturday that the nation has officially gone 42 days with no new recorded cases of the deadly virus. The minister said the outbreak killed four of the eight people infected. Officials announced the outbreak in May, saying it began in Bas-Uele province in the nation's remote northeast in the Likati zone, around 1,400 kilometers from the capital Kinshasa.

United Kingdom

Oil tanker collides with cargo ship

An oil tanker and a large cargo ship collided on Saturday in the Dover Strait between Britain and France but the accident caused no casualties or pollution and both vessels were able to set off again, French authorities said. The local Maritime Prefecture said the collision took place overnight 32 kilometers off the northern French port of Dunkirk, in the British zone of the strait between the English Channel and the North Sea, one of the world's busiest sea routes. It said none of the tanker's 27 crew members or the 22 on the freighter was injured.

(China Daily 07/03/2017 page12)