Afp, Brussels

British and EU trade negotiators embarked on high-stakes talks aimed at forging a new post-Brexit relationship yesterday. The negotiations began just over a month after Britain left the EU, and are meant to wrap up by the end of this year -- an exceedingly tight timeframe that few see as feasible for anything but a bare-bones accord.

Myanmar seizes drugs

worth $27 million

Afp, Yangon

Myanmar soldiers swooped on several illicit drugs labs to seize nearly $27 million of narcotics, chemicals and equipment, military newspaper The Myawady said yesterday, the biggest bust so far this year. Photos showed hundreds of barrels, bags and other containers recovered in the operation in what is believed to be the world’s largest methamphetamine producing nation.

Nirbhaya killers won’t

be hanged today

Ndtv Online

The four men convicted in the rape and killing of a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi in 2012 will not be hanged tomorrow as scheduled, a judge in Delhi said on Monday, deferring their execution for the third time. The mercy petition of one of the convicts is pending with the president, so they have not exhausted all their legal options, the judge ruled. On December 16, 2012, the medical student, who came to be known as “Nirbhaya”, was killed in a horrific way on a noving bus, triggering an unprecedented outpouring of public anger over crimes against women.