1.6m to lose homes despite protests

RUSSIA: The Duma voted yesterday to tear down 4,500 old housing blocks known as Khrushchevki and relocate 1.6 million Muscovites, despite massive protests.

Demonstrators were attacked by police and several were arrested.

The blocks are named after Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

The government says the blocks are dilapidated and it will build new high-rise flats, but residents are not guaranteed housing in the same area or of the same value and many fear they are being socially cleansed.

N Korea accused of terrorising student

UNITED STATES: Student Otto Warmbier, who was returned to the US on Tuesday night after being in a North Korean prison since March 2016, was “brutalised and terrorised” by the Pyongyang regime, his parents say.

They were told just last week that Mr Warmbier, 22, has been in a coma ever since his trial, where he received a 15-year hard labour sentence for trying to steal a hotel sign.

North Korean authorities say he was given a sleeping pill after the trial and never woke up.

Parents convicted over baby’s death

BELGIUM: The parents of a baby who died from malnutrition and dehydration were given six-month suspended sentences yesterday the death.

The couple, who were owners of a natural dietary shop, were believers in “unconventional nutrition” and the child’s death was “the result of the systematic offer of food that was not suitable,” the judge said.

MPs suspended for Lungu boycott

ZAMBIA: Parliament’s speaker suspended 48 opposition MPs on Tuesday for 30 days after they boycotted President Edgar Lungu’s opening speech in March.

The UPND party claims it lost last August’s elections because they were rigged and has said it doesn’t recognise Mr Lungu as president.

In April, the UPND’s leader and five others were arrested and charged with treason after not moving out of the way for Mr Lungu’s motorcade.