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SINGAPORE — Singapore on Wednesday executed a Malaysian man convicted of drug smuggling after a court dismissed a last-minute challenge from his mother and international pleas to spare him on grounds he was mentally disabled. Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, 34, had been on death row for over a decade after he was found guilty of trafficking about 43 grams (1.5 pounds) of heroin into Singapore. The city-state's government has said its use of the death penalty for drug crimes is made clear at the borders. Nagaenthran's family and social activists confirmed the execution Wednesday. "On this score may I declare that Malaysia is far more humane," his sister, Sarmila Dharmalingam, said. "Zero to Singapore on this." Nagaenthran's supporters and lawyers said he had an IQ of 69 and was intellectually disabled, and that the execution of a mentally ill person was prohibited under international human rights law. Singapore courts cited psychiatrists' testimony that ...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sherry Fonseka joined millions in 2019 in electing President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a military strategist whose brutal campaign helped end Sri Lanka's 30-year civil war 10 years earlier. Now he is one of thousands who, for weeks, have protested outside the president's office, calling on Rajapaksa and his brother, Mahinda, who is prime minister, to resign for leading the country into its worst economic crisis since its independence from Britain in 1948. With the island teetering near bankruptcy, Fonseka, who owns a small garment business in the capital, Colombo, has resorted to spending his own savings to pay the salaries of his 30 employees. But he knows he will soon have to let them go and is clear about who is to blame. "All of us thought we made the correct decision (to elect Rajapaksa), but we've realized we were wrong. We should have the backbone to tell people, and the world, that we made a mistake," he said. In recent weeks, protests have ...