World Briefs: Ex-China bank chief accused of graft

BEIJING • Hu Huaibang, former chairman of the China Development Bank (CDB), has been indicted on charges of taking bribes, the Supreme People's Procuratorate or the prosecutor-general's office said yesterday.

Hu, also former secretary of the CDB committee of the Chinese Communist Party, was charged with abusing the various positions he was then holding to seek profits for others and accepting vast sums of money and gifts in return, the prosecutor-general's office said in a statement.

Hu was also accused of using his power and status to seek illegitimate gains for others through other officials' work, said the statement.

XINHUA

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Progress in peace talks, says Thai govt

BANGKOK • Peace talks with the main insurgent group in southern Thailand have made progress, the government said yesterday after the two sides met in Kuala Lumpur earlier in the week.

Nearly six years after pulling out of the dialogue, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional resumed talks with the government in January, when the first meeting was held in the Malaysian capital.

"The overall atmosphere of the meeting was constructive," Thailand's Peace Dialogue Panel said in a statement. "The meeting also began discussing topics of substantive issues, including the reduction of violence."

REUTERS

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Albino orang utan doing well in the wild

KATINGAN • The world's only known albino orang utan has been spotted alive and well in a Borneo rainforest, more than a year after she was released into the wild, conservationists say.

Alba, a blue-eyed primate covered in fuzzy white hair, was taken in 2017 from a cage where she was being kept as a pet by villagers in Indonesia's section of Borneo, known as Kalimantan.

Alba was released back into the wild in late 2018.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE