1. Fillon wins France’s party primary

    Francois Fillon won France’s first-ever conservative presidential primary* on Sunday, beating fellow former Prime Minister Alain Juppe, 71, in a U.S.-style primary to win the nomination of the Republicans party and its allies.

    The new flag-bearer* of French conservatives came from behind a week ago to establish himself as the new champion of the right. Fillon, 62, has professed admiration for Britain’s 1980s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and vowed to slash public spending to shrink the French state. “You have to tear the house down to properly rebuild it,” he has said.

    2. Trump to fill more vacancies

    With his return to New York, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump faces a pressing need to set more of the foundation blocks of his presidency in place by filling vacancies for secretary of state and other top posts.

    Distraction looms, however, much of it created by the president-elect himself, whose extraordinary claims of widespread voter fraud during a 12-hour Twitter offensive* on Sunday cast a shadow over the legitimacy* of an election that he actually won.

    “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” Trump tweeted.

    3. Iran detains 3 over deadly train collision

    Iran’s judiciary* said on Saturday that authorities have detained three employees of the state railroad company over Friday’s train collision, which killed 45 people.

    The report by Mizanonline.ir, the judiciary news website, said authorities are continuing to investigate the incident.

    The accident took place about 250 kilometers east of the capital Tehran, when a moving passenger train slammed* into a second train that was parked at a station. Several of the train cars caught fire.

    4. Park ‘can’t be questioned’

    South Korean President Park Geun-hye could not be questioned yesterday as prosecutors have requested, her lawyer said on Monday, as she resists growing calls to resign over an influence scandal that has engulfed* her administration.

    Meanwhile, Park accepted the resignation of her justice minister on Monday, the latest in a series of personnel reshuffles she’s made amid a political scandal that’s threatening her leadership.

    Justice Minister Kim Hyun-woong and a senior presidential adviser offered to resign last week.

    5. Leaders respond to Castro’s passing

    While the death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro prompted cheers from the country’s exiles* in the United States, the 90-year-old revolutionary leader’s passing produced expressions of respect in other parts of the world and measured* responses from governments that saw the devoted socialist as a threat.

    Castro was honored and mourned by many present and former national leaders.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Saturday that history and people will remember Castro, calling the Cuban revolutionary leader “a great figure of our times.”

    6. Blast kills 2 at governor’s office in Turkey

    An explosion killed two people and wounded more than 30 outside the governor’s office in the southern Turkish city of Adana on Thursday, weeks after the United States warned of attacks by what it called extremist groups.

    Video footage showed a vehicle ablaze in the car park outside the building and thick black smoke rising into the sky in the city, 40 km from Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. Windows were blown out and parts of the facade of the building, roughly six floors high, were torn off.

    (SD-Agencies)