AP, Macao
Chinese leader Xi Jinping met Thursday with Macao’s new chief executive amid celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the former Portuguese colony’s handover to Chinese rule.
City leaders put the tiny gambling enclave of just 632,000 people on a security lock down, including barring political activists and journalists from nearby Hong Kong, which has been wracked by months of often violent anti-government protests.
German governing parties seek ban of Hezbollah in Europe
AP, Berlin
Germany’s governing parties are calling for a ban of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, saying it should be put on the European Union’s terrorist list.
Mathias Middelberg, the spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives in parliament, said a joint resolution with the junior coalition Social Democrats would be introduced for debate Thursday.
Lebanon talks for new PM begin
AFP, Beirut
Lebanon’s president started consultations Thursday to pick a replacement for Saad Hariri, who resigned seven weeks ago under pressure from an unprecedented wave of protests.
Hassan Diab, a professor at the American University of Beirut and a former education minister, was tipped by Lebanese media as Hariri’s likely successor. A new government is urgently needed to tackle a spiralling economic crisis which has left the country teetering on the brink of default.
14 killed in Mexico mini-bus crash
Xinhua, Mexico City
Fourteen people, including five children, were killed Wednesday after a mini-bus ran into a lumber truck and caught fire, authorities said. The mini-bus carrying a family was en route from their native Guanajuato state to the Pacific beach resort of Puerto Vallarta when it crashed into the truck, which stopped on the side of the road, said state emergency authorities, adding that 12 others were injured in the accident.
Many of the victims were trapped inside the burning vehicle, while two in serious condition were airlifted to a hospital in Guadalajara, capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, said officials.
