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In this photograph taken Feb. 10, 2019, relatives of victims who died from toxic locally made alcohol cry at a hospital in Saharanpur in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India.
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World briefs: Illegal brew’s death toll grows in India

AFP/Getty Images

World briefs: Illegal brew’s death toll grows in India

Plus: Soccer player who faced extradition from Thailand is back in Australia; May seeks compromise with Labour in EU divorce deal; and more.

Last weekend, Pintu Kumar, a farmhand in northern India, went to a friend’s memorial service.

On the way back to his village, he bought dozens of small plastic pouches of homemade alcohol. They weren’t labeled — they usually aren’t — but the alcohol was incredibly strong and cheap, at about 40 cents per pouch.

It was also unusually milky in color and smelled like diesel fuel. But that didn’t stop Mr. Kumar from tearing holes in a couple of pouches and sharing them with his friends.

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Then tragedy struck.

“All of them died,” said Bimlesh Kumar, a resident of the same village. “The bodies were scattered on the ground as if a massacre had been committed.”

In the past few days, the death toll from a poisonous batch of illegal homemade alcohol has reached as many as 100 people in northern India. The deaths, which have rattled the country and become front-page news, prompted the authorities to crack down on underground brewers, arresting more than 3,000 suspects and seizing tens of thousands of gallons of illicit alcohol.

Indian officials say they have traced the poisonous batch to a criminal enterprise that brews thousands of pouches of illicit alcohol in an underground factory hidden in the forest in Uttarakhand State. The kingpin, they say, is on the run.

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Politicians gearing up for national elections in the coming months have been quick to seize on this disaster and blame each other. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, an official for the Indian National Congress party and the latest member of the Gandhi dynasty to jump into politics, said it was “unimaginable” that this could happen “on such a large scale under the patronage of the Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh governments,” two states controlled by the rival Bharatiya Janata Party.

Soccer player who faced extradition from Thailand to Bahrain is back in Australia

A soccer player who was jailed in Thailand and faced being sent back to his native Bahrain, where he said he would be imprisoned and tortured, was released Monday after Thai prosecutors dropped the extradition case against him.

On Tuesday afternoon, the player, Hakeem al-Araibi, arrived back in Australia, where he has refugee status. He was greeted at the airport in Melbourne by a swarm of well-wishers, who started singing, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” a popular soccer anthem.

“Amazing to see all the people here,” he said. “I’m going to die in Australia. Australia is my country,” he added. “I love Australia.”

Mr. al-Araibi, 25, who had been a star defender for the Bahrain national soccer team, fled the small Gulf nation in 2011 during a crackdown on Arab Spring protesters. He said he had been tortured by government security forces. He has been playing soccer for a minor team in Melbourne, Australia.

After his arrest in November at an airport in Bangkok, he became the focus of lobbying by diplomats, prominent sports figures and a social media campaign under the hashtag #savehakeem.

Mr. al-Araibi left for Australia as soon as his departure was approved.

“This is the best outcome,” said his lawyer, Natalie Bergman. “It should have happened from the beginning, but later is better than nothing.”

U.K.’s May seeks compromise with Labour in EU divorce deal

LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May sought a compromise Monday with opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn in hopes of securing his backing for a divorce deal with the European Union.

The political maneuvering comes amid strong signs that uncertainty over Brexit is already clamping down on Britain’s economic growth.

Taking a cordial tone, Ms. May suggested further talks with the Labour Party leadership even as she said she did not see the advantage of permanent membership in the EU’s customs union, a key demand Mr. Corbyn is seeking in exchange for backing her troubled Brexit bill in Parliament.

Justice Minister Rory Stewart told the BBC that differences between the two parties aren’t as great as some suggest, but said the Conservative government can’t accept Mr. Corbyn’s customs union demand because it would prevent Britain from negotiating trade deals with other countries. He said Ms. May’s agreement would achieve most of Mr. Corbyn’s goals without preventing independent trade deals.

“I agree that the longer this goes on, the more risky it gets, obviously,” Mr. Stewart said. “But, the solution to this has to be to get Jeremy Corbyn, or the Labour Party, or indeed Parliament as a whole, to come behind a deal.”

Time pressure is mounting. Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, but lawmakers in Parliament have emphatically rejected Ms. May’s divorce deal, raising the prospect of a no-deal exit from the bloc unless more parliamentary support is found.

Iraq rebuffs U.S. demands to stop buying energy from Iran

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is pressuring Iraq to stop buying energy from its neighbor and sole foreign supplier, Iran, in what has become a major point of conflict between Washington and Baghdad.

Iraqi leaders, fearing that a further shortfall in power would lead to mass protests and political instability in their electricity-starved country, are pushing back on the demand, which is rooted in President Donald Trump’s sanctions against Iran.

The dispute has frayed U.S. diplomacy with Baghdad as Iraq tries to steady itself after the U.S. military withdrawal in 2011 and the campaign against the Islamic State group.

Iraq’s defiance further jeopardizes Mr. Trump’s goal of getting all nations to comply with sanctions after withdrawing from the deal to limit Tehran’s nuclear program last year. Already, European nations have set up a legal financial mechanism to do business with Iran, and China and India are resisting U.S. efforts at prodding them to cut off oil purchases.

Tensions rose after Mr. Trump said Feb. 3 that he planned to have U.S. troops who have returned to Iraq “watch Iran,” despite Baghdad’s need to maintain cordial ties with its fellow Shiite neighbor. Mr. Trump’s comments added momentum to proposed legislation in Iraq that would limit the movement and activities of U.S. troops.

“The people of Iraq have suffered from the blockade and are aware of the harm done to the people by their actions,” Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi of Iraq said last week after a meeting with the governor of Iran’s central bank, Abdolnaser Hemmati. He was referring to 13 years of crippling sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United States when Saddam Hussein was in power.

First Published: February 12, 2019, 7:39 a.m.

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In this photograph taken Feb. 10, 2019, relatives of victims who died from toxic locally made alcohol cry at a hospital in Saharanpur in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India.  (AFP/Getty Images)
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