World in brief

VENEZUELA

U.S. man detained in post-vote crackdown

A 35-year-old filmmaker from California has been arrested by Venezuelan authorities who are accusing him of fomenting postelection violence on behalf of the U.S. government. President Nicolas Maduro said Thursday that he personally ordered Timothy Tracy’s arrest on suspicion of “creating violence in the cities of this country.” Venezuela’s interior minister said Tracy was working for U.S. intelligence, paying right-wing youth groups to hold violent demonstrations to destabilize the country after Maduro’s narrow election win last week. Friends and family of Tracy said he had been in Venezuela since last year making a documentary on the country.

MALI

U.N. approves peacekeeping force

The Security Council unanimously approved a new U.N. peacekeeping force for Mali on Thursday to help restore democracy and stabilize the northern half of the country, which was controlled by Islamist jihadists until a France-led military operation ousted them three months ago. The resolution authorizes the deployment of a U.N. force of 11,200 military personnel and 1,440 international police with a mandate to help restore peace, especially in northern cities. The U.N. peacekeepers are not authorized to undertake offensive military operations or chase terrorists in the desert, roles that will continue to be carried out by France under an agreement with Mali.

UNITED KINGDOM

Research: It really is monkey-see, monkey-do

In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland showed that when Vervet monkeys roam, they act in when-in-Rome fashion. Wild Vervet monkeys, conditioned to eat only pink-dyed corn or blue-dyed corn and to shun the other color, quickly began eating the disliked-color corn when they moved from a pink-preferred setting to a blue-is-best place, and vice versa. The switch occurred even though both corn colors were equally accessible. Scientists said the only explanation was that the monkeys relinquished their strongly held color convictions because they saw the locals happily eating the hated hue.

AUSTRIA

Emperor’s hair snags high sum

A lock of hair from a former Austrian emperor has fetched a price of $17,800 at an auction of imperial memorabilia — more than 20 times its listed worth. Hushed murmurs rippled through the room as the winning bid was announced for the silvery strands of hair from Franz Josef I, who ruled Austria from 1848 until his death in 1916. At more than three times its estimated value, that price reflected the growing scarcity of Austrian imperial memorabilia nearly a century after the country’s last emperor abdicated with the end of World War I.

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

Elephant poaching on the rise

Elephant meat is flooding food markets in villages near a famed wildlife reserve in Central African Republic one month after rebels believed to be involved in poaching overthrew the government, conservationists said Thursday. At least 40 elephants have been slain at Dzanga-Sangha reserve in the rainforests of southwestern Central African Republic since the rebels took power on March 24, local residents said.

RUSSIA

Putin holds forth for nearly five hours

President Vladimir V. Putin on Thursday returned to the Kremlin stagecraft that has served him for more than a decade, engaging in a live televised question-and-answer session that lasted for a record-breaking 4 hours 47 minutes. Putin skipped the annual “Conversation With Putin” last year, when a protest movement was swelling in the capital. He pledged help for retirees and factory workers, and he benevolently granted petitions, like one from a pigtailed girl in Russia’s far east who asked for a playground.