News in Brief
China respects ex-Soviet states as sovereign nations: Foreign Ministry
REUTERS – China respects the status of the independent sovereign nations that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Monday, after Beijing’s envoy to Paris sparked a diplomatic storm by questioning their sovereignty.
Ambassador Lu Shaye said on Friday that former Soviet countries like Ukraine lacked “actual status in international law”, prompting foreign ministers from several EU member states to label his comments as totally unacceptable.
Bangladesh swears in
new president ahead of election
AFP – Mohammed Shahabuddin, a former judge and a ruling party official, was sworn in as the president of Bangladesh on Monday, just months before a general election.
Shahabuddin, 73, was an anti-corruption commissioner and fought in the country’s 1971 war of independence against Pakistan, the presidential palace said.
Death toll in Kenyan starvation
cult rises
to 58
REUTERS – Kenyan police have recovered 58 bodies, mostly from mass graves in a forest in eastern Kenya, thought to be followers of a Christian cult who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves, the country’s police chief said on Monday.
The death toll, which has repeatedly risen as exhumations have been carried out, could rise further. The Kenyan Red Cross said 112 people have been reported missing to a tracing and counselling desk it has set up at a local hospital.