BRAZIL: Supreme Court judge Luiz Fux has ordered the arrest of Italian far-left militant Cesare Battisti.

Mr Battisti, a former member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism group that carried out bank robberies and other acts of violence in Italy in the 1970s, escaped Italy while awaiting trial on four murder charges. He was convicted in absentia but denies guilt. He had been granted asylum by former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2010.

FRANCE: A ceremony was held at the Herrlisheim Jewish cemetery near Strasbourg yesterday to denounce anti-semitism and remember Holocaust victims. 

The cemetery was desecrated with anti-semitic slogans and nazi swastikas on Tuesday, hours before a gunman opened fire at Christmas shoppers in Strasbourg itself. It is not known if the incidents were linked.

French police say they recorded 69 per cent more anti-semitic acts in the first nine months of 2018 compared to the same period the previous year.

INDIA: Thirteen miners were feared dead yesterday after a shaft collapsed and flooded in an illegal mine in the north-eastern Meghalaya state.

All were believed to be teenage boys used by illegal mining outfits to enter “rat hole” mines with small openings.

Last month Civil Society Women’s Organisation president Agnes Kharshiing was brutally assaulted by mine bosses’ thugs when protesting against illegal mining in the area. She remains in critical condition.

UNITED STATES: A seven-year-old girl from Guatemala has died in custody after reaching the US border.

She was travelling with a group of 163 refugees who turned themselves in on December 6 and were arrested. She was flown to a hospital in El Paso, Texas, after having seizures, but died of dehydration and shock.