WORLD BRIEFS
MOSCOW
Standoff at Ukraine post office ends with no one hurt
All nine people taken hostage at a post office in Ukraine’s second-biggest city have been released and the man who held them has been arrested, police said Saturday.
Ukrainian police chief Serhiy Knyazev said no one was injured in the standoff in Kharkiv.
Police didn’t say whether the attacker, who said he had firearms and explosives, made any specific demands.
Initial reports said the man was holding 11 people, but Kharkiv police said after the siege was over that he had taken nine hostages.
They said that the hostage-taker first released three women and two children following talks.
A boy interviewed in a video posted by a Ukrainian journalist said the man said he had a brain tumor and treated the hostages well, offering them tea or coffee.
The remaining four hostages were freed when police stormed the post office.
Ukrainian television stations broadcast footage of the hostage-taker being escorted out of the building by police. The man faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
In a Facebook statement, President Petro Poroshenko thanked police and the national security service for taking part in the operation.
MEXICO CITY
American killed in Mexico resort identified as city official
An American shot dead in a Mexican beach resort has been identified as an official from a Southern California city.
The city of Imperial Beach says in a statement that its Administrative Services Director Doug Bradley was killed Thursday while vacationing in Zihuatanejo, Mexico.
The township includes the neighboring resort of Ixtapa.
The death came the day before Bradley’s 50th birthday
Guerrero state security officials had reported Bradley’s death Friday without identifying him.
The city’s statement said Bradley lived in Mexico and commuted to Imperial Beach.
An avid surfer, he had travelled much of the Mexican coast.
The city is working with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico to repatriate Bradley’s body.
MOSCOW
Russia denies report of North Korea sanctions breach
The Russian Foreign Ministry on Saturday denied claims that U.N. sanctions against North Korea had been breached by Russian tankers transferring fuel to North Korean tankers at sea.
The statement came in response to a Reuters report citing unidentified Western European security sources who said the transfers took place in October and November and represented a breach of sanctions.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that Russia has “fully and strictly observed the sanctions regime.”
The statement did not address whether or not Russian ships had transferred the fuel.
It did say resolutions by the United Nations Security Council have imposed limits on North Korea’s refined oil imports but haven’t banned them altogether.
The council has unanimously approved several rounds of sanctions against North Korea over its missile tests and nuclear program, including a tough new U.N. resolution earlier this month.
The resolution adopted by the council included sharply lower limits on North Korea’s refined oil imports, the return home of all North Koreans working overseas within 24 months, and a crackdown on ships smuggling banned items including coal and oil to and from the country.
It didn’t include even harsher measures sought by Washington that would ban all oil imports and freeze international assets of the government and its leader, Kim Jong Un.
— The Associated Press