World News at a Glance

New Sinn Fein Leader Has a Familiar Task: Wooing Irish-Americans

Every St. Patrick’s Day for two decades, Gerry Adams or other leaders of Sinn Fein, the party once known primarily as the Irish Republican Army’s political arm, have come to the U.S. to lobby Washington politicians and rally Irish-American donors. This year, there was a new item on Adams’ agenda: Passing the torch to the party’s new president, Mary Lou McDonald, who was elected last month. In an interview, McDonald said she hoped U.S. support could help Sinn Fein manage two crises in Northern Ireland: the collapse of its power-sharing government and the British exit from the European Union, which could reimpose a border between the Republic and the North.

Indian Children’s Book Lists Hitler as Leader ‘Who Will Inspire You’

An Indian publisher came under fire this past week for including Hitler in a children’s book about world leaders who have “devoted their lives for the betterment of their country and people.” “Dedicated to the betterment of countries and people? Adolf Hitler? This description would bring tears of joy to the Nazis and their racist neo-Nazi heirs,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, said in a statement. Published by the Pegasus imprint of India’s B. Jain Publishing Group, the book spotlights 11 leaders “who will inspire you,” according to a description on the publisher’s website.

North Korea-Sweden Talks Focus on ‘Peaceful Solution’ to Nuclear Conflict

The Swedish and North Korean foreign ministers concluded three days of talks in Stockholm on Saturday over the security situation on the Korean Peninsula, discussions that may help facilitate a meeting between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, leader of North Korea. The two sides “discussed opportunities and challenges for continued diplomatic efforts to reach a peaceful solution to the conflict,” according to a statement issued by the Swedish Foreign Ministry after the talks. The statement added: “Sweden underlined the need for North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arms and missiles program in line with several Security Council resolutions.”

China’s Xi Begins Term With a New No. 2 to Tackle Trump

Xi Jinping started his second term as China’s president on Saturday, flanked by a new vice president, Wang Qishan, who is shaping up as a potent deputy to Xi, with a potentially powerful say in grappling with the Trump administration over trade disputes. Xi and Wang shook hands after the National People’s Congress, the Communist Party-controlled legislature, endorsed them for the posts. Xi won all of the 2,970 votes cast for president, and all but one legislator voted for Wang for vice president. In China, the vice presidency is not an inherently powerful job. But Wang appears poised to break that pattern and serve as a political guardian for Xi.

Russia Expels 23 British Diplomats, Escalating Row Over Ex-Spy’s

Russia on Saturday ordered 23 British diplomats to leave the country within a week, escalating a diplomatic crisis after a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with a military grade nerve agent on British soil. The order came days after Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain expelled the same number of Russian diplomats and called off high-level contacts between the two governments. In a statement, the Foreign Ministry cast Russia as the aggrieved party, asserting that Russia was acting “in response to the unfounded accusation against the Russian Federation for what happened in Salisbury.”

At Least 16 Migrants Drown Off Greek Island, Including 5 Children

The bodies of 16 people, including at least five children, were recovered from the sea off a Greek island on Saturday after a boat smuggling migrants sank in the eastern Aegean, a spokeswoman for the Greek coast guard said. The drownings — the first such mass casualty in several months — came almost exactly two years after Turkey and the European Union signed a deal to curb the flow of migrants trying to reach Europe via the Aegean Sea. Although the influx has been limited drastically since that time, hundreds continue to reach Greek islands in smuggling vessels that are often old, flimsy and unseaworthy.

In Israel’s Poorer Periphery, Legal Woes Don’t Dent Netanyahu’s Appeal

In the liberal bastions of Tel Aviv and its well-to-do suburbs, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s critics tut-tut with each new revelation in the intensifying bribery cases against him. But in the other Israel — poorer areas beyond the country’s commercial center — Netanyahu is widely hailed as a great orator and a world-class statesman who has brought prosperity and safeguarded the country’s security in a hostile neighborhood. “Gifts, no gifts. There is nobody in politics who is unblemished. It’s give and take,” said Yehuda Ayyash, 58, a greengrocer in the town of Kiryat Malachi in southern Israel. Besides, Ayyash added, “there is nobody else.”

Young Slovaks Buck a Trend, Protesting to Save Their Democracy

Tens of thousands to young Slovaks have taken to the streets in the largest mass gatherings since the 1989 Velvet Revolution. The outpouring was initially spurred by the killing of an investigative journalist and his fiancee. But it has since turned on a government whose corruption is seen by young people as a threat to their future. The protests forced the resignation of Prime Minister Robert Fico, but they have shown little sign of abating as the demonstrators appear determined to safeguard hard-won freedoms. Unlike in Hungary or Poland, where leaders have steadily dismantled democratic institutions, Slovakians are calling for a recommitment to Western democratic values and the rule of law.