Indian billionaire Adani under indictment for fraud in US

Today's news:  36-year-old Thai woman executed with cyanide; North Korea and Russia strengthened economic ties, starting with tourism; Jimmi Lai at national security trial: ‘never’ influenced Hong Kong policy with foreign contacts.

INDIA-UNITED STATES

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has been formally charged with fraud in the United States. The documents filed yesterday in New York allege that Adani - a tycoon very close to Prime Minister Modi - and other senior executives agreed to payments to Indian officials to win contracts for his company in the renewable energy sector that are expected to yield more than billion in profits over 20 years. Prosecutors accuse Adani of collecting billion in loans and bonds, including from US companies, based on false and misleading statements about the company's anti-corruption practices and policies. Shares of Adani Group companies are experiencing a wave of selling on the stock market with the group losing about billion in capitalisation in just a few hours.

THAILAND

A woman in Thailand has been sentenced to death in the first of a series of cases in which she is accused of killing 14 friends with cyanide. The Bangkok court found Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn, 36, guilty of putting poison in the food and drink of a wealthy friend while they were travelling last year. The friend's relatives refused to accept that she had died of natural causes and the autopsy found traces of cyanide in her body.

NORTH KOREA - RUSSIA

North Korea and Russia signed a cooperation protocol after a meeting in Pyongyang on trade, economy, science and technology, North Korean state media KCNA reported. The report contains few details, but the Russian news agency TASS said on Tuesday that the countries agreed to increase flights. Between January and September, more than 5,000 people travelled between Russia and North Korea, more than 70 per cent of them by plane.

PHILIPPINES - INDONESIA

A Filipino woman spared execution in Indonesia on drug trafficking charges in 2015 will return to her homeland after years of negotiations between her Southeast Asian neighbours. Mary Jane Veloso was arrested in the city of Yogyakarta for carrying 2.6 kg of heroin hidden in a suitcase in 2010. ‘In the end, the goal is not only to transfer her, but also to gain the clemency of our President,’ said Foreign Ministry official Eduardo Jose de Vega at a press conference in Manila, the capital.

ISRAEL - GAZA - USA

Israeli forces shelled northern Gaza again, killing 88 Palestinians in two waves of attacks in Beit Lahiya and the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City. Meanwhile, the US Senate rejected a bill aimed at blocking the sale of US arms to Israel in the context of the aggression against Gaza, an outcome that rights advocates say does not detract from the growing push for aid to Washington's main ally.

GEORGIA

Georgian special forces cleared the tent city that demonstrators had gathered in the centre of Tbilisi as a protest against the parliamentary elections, using water jets and pepper spray and arresting several people, destroying the camera of a cameraman of the TV channel Mtavari and detaining other journalists, one injured is hospitalised.

TURKMENISTAN - UZBEKISTAN

At the Dashoguz-Šabat border crossing in Turkmenistan, problems have again arisen for Turkmen citizens intending to travel to Uzbekistan to visit their relatives abroad, and also for small entrepreneurs working between the two countries, all of whom are subjected to extraordinary document checks for alleged irregularities in the work of migrants.

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