CHINA: A Chinese envoy asked Australian authorities today to increase efforts to find survivors in an Indian Ocean search for 39 crew members missing from a capsized Chinese fishing boat.

Ambassador Xiao Qian said that the Australian authority had already sent four aeroplanes and three ships to the search area, which is in the centre of the Indian Ocean.

No survivors or life rafts have been spotted.

NEW ZEALAND: Police said today that they had arrested an as yet unnamed man and charged him with two counts of arson in connection with the fire at a Wellington hostel that killed at least six people.

Police said the investigation is ongoing and they could file more serious charges in relation to the deaths at the scene.

UNITED STATES: Most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy will be banned in North Carolina from July 1 after the state’s Republican-controlled legislature successfully over-rode Henry McMaster, the Democratic governor’s veto on Tuesday.

Abortion is banned or severely restricted in much of the south, including bans throughout pregnancy in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. In Georgia, it is allowed only in the first six weeks.

SINGAPORE: Authorities in Singapore on Wednesday hanged another citizen for trafficking cannabis, the second in three weeks, despite growing calls for the city-state to halt drug-related executions.

The unnamed man, by request of his family, was executed after his last-ditch bid to reopen his case was dismissed by the court on Tuesday without a hearing, said activist Kokila Annamalai of the Transformative Justice Collective, which advocates for abolishing the death penalty in Singapore.