EU approves extended use of weed killer

BRUSSELS — The European Union on Monday approved a five-year extension to the use of the weed killer glyphosate, in a move that failed to satisfy either environmentalists or farmers and pitted Germany, which favored the extension, against France, which opposed it.

After a drawn-out process, the EU backed the extension with a qualified majority and was able to beat a mid-December deadline when the current license expires — 18 member states voted in favor, nine against while one abstained.

Environmentalists had hoped on an immediate ban since they claim that the weed killer, used in chemical giant Monsanto’s popular Roundup herbicide, is linked to cancer. The World Health Organization’s cancer agency said in 2015 that the weed killer is “probably carcinogenic” to humans.

Many farmers, who say the substance is safe, had wanted a 15-year extension. EU nations long failed to find a compromise amid conflicting health reports.

Chechnya leader to stay

Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who won a new five-year term last year, said it’s time for him to step aside and let the Kremlin choose a successor, but the Kremlin said Mr. Kadyrov is staying in his post.

“There was a time when people like me were needed — to fight, to bring order,” Mr. Kadyrov, 41, said in an interview broadcast Sunday on state-run Rossiya 1 TV, adding that it would be up to the Kremlin to decide on his successor. “Now we have order.”

Mr. Kadyrov has said repeatedly that he’ll work as President Vladimir Putin directs and “he continues to be the head of the republic,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call Monday.

Volcano threatens island

KARANGASEM, Indonesia — A volcano gushing towering columns of ash over an Indonesian tourist island closed the Bali international airport for a second day Tuesday, disrupting travel for tens of thousands, as authorities renewed their warnings for villagers to evacuate.

Mount Agung has been hurling clouds of ash about 9,800 feet high since the weekend and lava is welling in the crater. Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency raised the volcano’s alert to the highest level Monday and expanded an exclusion zone.

Agung’s last major eruption in 1963 killed about 1,100 people.

Pakistan strikes deal

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s government struck a deal Monday with leaders of a fundamentalist Islamist protest movement, saying that the country’s law minister would step down in return for an end to demonstrations that had brought violent clashes and paralyzed the Pakistani capital for weeks.

The embattled law minister, Zahid Hamid, whom protesters had accused of blasphemy, resigned as part of negotiations overseen by Pakistan’s military, officials said.

Public anger over the protests’ disruption of Islamabad, the capital, had been growing, and the agreement was seen as another in a string of capitulations by the government to religious extremists who command growing popularity in Pakistan.

A few days before, a judicial panel ordered the release of Islamist militant leader Hafiz Saeed from house arrest. Mr. Saeed is accused in the deadly Mumbai terror attacks in 2008 but is popular in Pakistan and seen as likely to take up leadership of a political party started by his inner circle.

Hondurans vote

As Honduras counted votes Monday in its presidential election, Salvador Nasralla, a former sportscaster representing a leftwing alliance, took an early lead over President Juan Orlando Hernández, an unexpected development that could reshuffle the country’s political forces if the trend holds.

A victory by Mr. Nasralla would be a rebuke to Mr. Hernández, an authoritarian who has maneuvered to take control over most of the country’s fragile institutions.