News in Brief -(01-05-2019)

China sentences

second Canadian

to death

BEIJING, Apr 30: A court in China has sentenced a Canadian citizen to death for producing and trafficking methamphetamine. Fan Wei, whose gender was not specified, is the second Canadian to be sentenced to death this year. Ten others, including five foreigners, were also sentenced on Tuesday. — BBC

Lankan church leader criticises govt effort

COLOMBO, Apr 30: Sri Lanka's top Catholic Church official says the search by authorities for additional suspects and explosives linked to the Easter bombings has been inadequate, particularly in Negombo, the seaside village where one of the blasts killed about 100 people. The archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, told reporters Tuesday that a government ban on face veils was good but didn't go far enough to protect believers from further attacks. — AP

UK’s Labour faces rift over new EU referendum

LONDON, Apr 30: It's not just the British government that has problems over Brexit. The main opposition Labour Party is agonising over whether to back a second EU membership referendum. — AP

UN evacuates 146 migrants from Libya to Italy

ROME, Apr 30: A group of 146 asylum-seekers have arrived in Italy as part of a UN-backed humanitarian evacuation from Libya. The UN refugee agency says it's the fifth such evacuation since 2017, though previous airlifts have taken migrants to Niger and elsewhere. The group arrived Monday at a Rome military base. Dozens of the asylum-seekers are minors, many of whom are unaccompanied. They hail from Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Ethiopia. — AP