IN BRIEF (Page 11)

Korean Peninsula

Scaled-back joint drill between US, ROK

The combined forces of the Republic of Korea and the United States on Monday began a weeklong joint military drill called Dong Maeng that was scaled back compared with the previous springtime war games, the ROK Defense Ministry said. The exercise Dong Maeng, which means "alliance" in English, would last until March 12 except Saturday and Sunday. It replaced the Key Resolve command post exercise, a tabletop computer-simulated war game. It was scaled down in length as the previous Key Resolve war game continued for two weeks. The size of troops mobilized for the Dong Maeng exercise was unknown, but it excluding a counterattack scenario exercise, only training a defense posture, according to local media reports. The Key Resolve drill used to be followed by a massive Foal Eagle field training exercise in the past. No announcement was made so far about the revised field training exercise.

South Asia

Neighbors restart cross-border trains

A key train service, the Samjhauta Express between India and Pakistan, was resumed on Monday, officials said. The rail service between Lahore and New Delhi was suspended in wake of the recent tension between the two neighboring countries. According to Pakistani media reports on Monday, a train carrying 150 passengers left the railway station in the Pakistani city of Lahore for India in the morning. The cross-border passenger train service was suspended due to recent tensions over last month's suicide attack in India-controlled Kashmir, which killed more than 40 Indian policemen, officials said. The train normally runs between the two neighboring countries on Monday and Thursday. Pakistan Foreign Ministry announced suspension of the train service on Feb 28 "in view of the prevailing tensions between Pakistan and India."

Estonia

Liberal opposition wins election

Estonia's liberal opposition Reform Party won 34 seats in the country's parliamentary elections held on Sunday, outperforming the current ruling Centre Party, which gained 26 seats, the election results showed on Monday. The two small parties in the current ruling coalition, Pro Patria and the Social Democrats, won 12 seats and 10 seats, respectively, while the right-wing Conservative People's Party of Estonia got 19 seats, showed the voting and election results on the official website of State Electoral Office of Estonia. Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas, who is the chairman of the Centre Party, said that he will do his utmost to make the Centre Party a part of the next government, the Estonian Public Broadcasting ETV reported. The voter turnout was 63.9 percent, showed the preliminary results on the official election website.

Indonesia

Varied numbers of buried gold miners

Indonesian authorities said on Monday that they're not certain how many people were buried in the collapse of a remote gold mine nearly a week ago but that the number could be as high as 100. The disaster agency said the official death toll from the collapse of the mine in North Sulawesi's Bolaang Mongondow district is nine. Nineteen people were rescued with injuries from ranging from minor to serious. Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said there's "no exact data on the number of victims". "Some say 30 people, 50 people, 60 people, even 100 people because at the time many were mining in big pits, while in small pits it was unknown," he said. The unlicensed mine collapsed on Tuesday evening due to shifting soil and the large number of mining holes.

Xinhua - Ap - Afp

(China Daily 03/05/2019 page11)