Putin regrets collapse of Soviet Union

Compiled from news services

A day after unveiling dramatic new weapons — including a nuclear-powered cruise missile — that sparked talk of a return to Cold War tensions, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested he would reverse the collapse of the Soviet Union if he could.

Mr. Putin’s comments on the 1991 collapse of the USSR — which bound Russia and many of its neighbors, while exerting influence in Eastern Europe and abroad for almost seven decades — came at a question-and-answer forum held Friday in Kaliningrad.

The Russian leader was asked what event in his nation’s history he would have liked to change.

“The collapse of the Soviet Union,” Mr. Putin responded, according to the Russian news agency Tass.

Regret about the collapse of the Soviet Union is not unusual in Russia.

Executive held in killing

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The Honduran police have arrested a highranking executive with a hydroelectric company in connection with the 2016 killing of an activist who led a decade-long fight against a dam project, saying that he had helped to plan the crime.

The executive, Roberto David Castillo Mejia, was executive president of the Honduran company that is building the dam, Desarrollos Energéticos S.A., or Desa, at the time the activist, Berta Cáceres, was shot and killed.

Mr. Castillo was arrested on Friday at an airport in San Pedro Sula, in northern Honduras, as he was about to fly to Houston, news reports said.

Trade tension talks

BEIJING — President Xi Jinping’s top economic adviser told U.S. business leaders in Washington that China hopes the White House will revive high-level dialogue on economic disputes and name a new chief liaison to defuse mounting trade tensions, a person briefed on the matter said.

The adviser, Liu He, said he will take charge of reform efforts this month and wants a list of U.S. demands for what China can do to ease tensions, according to the person, who requested anonymity to discuss a confidential meeting.

Bank lawyer indicted

VATICANCITY — Vaticanprosecutors have indicted theformer president of the Vaticanbank and his lawyer onembezzlement charges, holdingthem responsible for lossesof more than 50 million euros($62 million) from real estatesales.

The trial of Angelo Caloia and his lawyer is due to begin March 15.

A third suspect died while under investigation.