8 missing after mudslide in Swiss Alps
GENEVA— Rescue workers used a helicopter and dogs to search for at least eight people still unaccounted for in a Swiss Alpine valley on Thursday, a day after a mudslide and rockslide hit a small village near the Italian border.
The village of Bondo, about 80 miles north of Milan, has been evacuated. The slide Wednesday morning sent about 4 million cubic meters (140 million cubic feet) of material crashing down, causing an impact equivalent to 3.0 on the Richter scale, senior police official Andrea Mittner said.
Qatar-Iran relations fixed
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Qatar restored full diplomatic relations with Iran early on Thursday and promised to send its ambassador back to Tehran — a move counter to the demands of Arab nations trying to isolate Doha as part of a regional dispute.
Iran, which welcomed the decision, sent food to Qatar and allowed its airplanes to increasingly use the Islamic Republic’s airspace.
Qatar pulled its ambassador from Tehran in early 2016 after Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric sparked attacks on two Saudi diplomatic posts in Iran, a move to show solidarity with the kingdom.
Rally for former president
SANAA,Yemen — Tens of thousands of supporters of Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh rallied Thursday in the Yemeni capital in a show of political strength amid emerging frictions in there bel alliance seeking to control the nation.
The demonstration, to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the founding of the General People’s Congress, Mr. Saleh’s political party, drew supporters from at least seven provinces.
The rally followed days of tensions between the Shiite Houthi movement that ousted internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in early 2015 and Mr. Saleh’s loyalists.
Former Thai leader’s trial
BANGKOK— Atop Thai court will rule Friday on charges of negligence against former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, a verdict that may rekindle political tensions in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy.
Ms. Yingluck, whose government was ousted in a 2014 coup, faces up to a decade in jail if convicted of failing to curb losses from her government’s $26 billion rice-purchasing program for poor farmers. She has denied the charges and says the two-year trial is politically motivated.
The verdict threatens to reopen fissures that have triggered violent clashes over the past decade.
Also in the world ...
The death toll from Typhoon Hato has risen to 16 as the most powerful storm to hit the southern Chinese region in more than half a century swamped the gambling hub of Macau, submerging streets and stranding residents. ... Police in Rotterdam, Netherlands, say they have released the driver of a van with Spanish license plates that was carrying a number of gas canisters who was detained amid a terror threat targeting a concert by an American rock band. ... Mirgayas Shirinsky, Russia’s ambassador to Sudan, was found dead at his Khartoum home on Wednesday — at least the fourth time since December that a senior Kremlin envoy has died prematurely overseas. ... India’s top court ruled Thursday that privacy is a fundamental right of every citizen, in a landmark judgment that could affect the country’s mammoth identity card system.