The world in brief

Extra U.K. forces pulled as threat abates

LONDON -- Britain's Ministry of Defense announced an end to its weeklong deployment to help police cope with an increased threat of a terror attack after the Manchester concert bombing.

Chief of the Defense Staff Stuart Peach said Thursday that roughly 1,000 military personnel had been deployed along with police as the terrorist threat was raised to "critical" after the attack that killed 22 people and injured dozens more.

The official threat level has been lowered from "critical" -- the highest level, meaning an attack may be imminent -- to "severe," which means the government believes an attack is highly likely.

Peach said military personnel will "remain at readiness to deploy" if needed.

The end of the military role came after Manchester police said they had released a man who was arrested in the concert-bombing investigation without charging him. Police said the 21-year-old was set free Wednesday night. His name was not released.

Ten men are being questioned in custody about possible roles in the blast. All were arrested regarding violation of the Terrorism Act. They have not been identified or charged. Six people, including a woman, have been released without being charged.

Details about the investigation have not been released.

Bribed ex-official in China gets life term

BEIJING -- The former head of China's statistics bureau was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of taking bribes over more than two decades -- one of a spate of newly resolved public-corruption cases involving almost $100 million in money and illicit gifts.

Wang Baoan, the former director of the National Bureau of Statistics, was accused of trading political favors for money, sex, gifts, property and business concessions, according to a court in Hebei province and the official Xinhua News Agency. The bribes reportedly worth $22.4 million were channeled to Wang either directly or through relatives.

Control over information such as bank lending and local economic growth is enormously valuable in China, where the government often operates in secret and officials are mainly evaluated for promotion based on their ability to meet economic-development targets.

Wang's sentencing was one of seven in corruption trials involving senior public officials reported Wednesday and Thursday by Xinhua. The cases involved a combined $95.7 million in bribes, an enormous sum compared with the relatively modest salaries paid to public officials in China.

Convicted ex-death camp guard dies

BERLIN -- Reinhold Hanning, a former SS sergeant whose conviction last year on 170,000 counts of accessory to murder for serving as an Auschwitz guard was hailed as a long-overdue victory for Holocaust victims, has died. He was 95.

Hanning died Tuesday, his attorney Andreas Scharmer said Thursday without providing further details.

Hanning was convicted last June in Detmold state court in northwestern Germany and sentenced to five years in prison, though he never served time behind bars as his case was still being appealed.

Unlike most other death-camp guards who have gone to trial, Hanning apologized for his wartime service in Auschwitz from January 1942 to June 1944.

Nearly 1 million Jews and tens of thousands of others were killed in Auschwitz, which was in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Though his own duties were not directly linked to the killings -- he initially was assigned to register patrols and work details and later posted to a guard tower -- he was tried under new legal reasoning in Germany that anyone who helped a death camp function can be held culpable as an accessory to murder.

44 migrants die of thirst on Sahara route

NIAMEY, Niger -- At least 44 migrants, including babies, died of thirst after their vehicle broke down in the Sahara Desert as they were making their way to Libya, an official in Niger said Thursday.

Niger is a key route for West African migrants making their way toward Europe. About 300,000 migrants passed through the vast West African nation in 2016 alone, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Most of the deceased migrants were from Ghana, said the prefect of Dirkou locality, Bachir Manzo. They included three babies, two children and 17 women. The official said six people survived and were being cared for in the Dirkou migrant center.

A Section on 06/02/2017

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