World Briefs

JAPANESE media are reporting an explosion in a public restroom at Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead, including those executed as war criminals. No one was injured. More on p12

AUSTRALIA-SYRIA The Australian government remained committed to resettling 12,000 Syrian refugees, but security checks could take more than a year.

AFGHANISTAN Threatening letters from the Taliban, once tantamount to a death sentence, are now being forged and sold to Afghans who want to start a new life in Europe. The would-be migrants hope the letters will help them claim asylum, but European officials are catching on.

GREECE Six Iranian migrants have sewn their mouths shut during a protest near the village of Idomeni at the Greek-Macedonia border. They took the action yesterday as several hundred migrants, many from Iran and Morocco, protested for a fourth straight day at the border. Macedonia and other Balkan countries have toughened criteria for border crossings in the wake of the deadly Nov. 13 Paris attacks.

ISRAELI officials say that troops have shot and killed a Palestinian attacker who stabbed an Israeli man to death at a West Bank gas station. Yesterday’s attack is the latest in a fresh burst of violence ahead of the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
SAUDI ARABIA A relative of the Palestinian poet sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for apostasy says his defense lawyers plan to appeal. Fayadh was arrested in January 2014. Al-Watan reported that he was charged with blasphemy, spreading atheism and having long hair, along with other charges. New York-based Human Rights Watch said yesterday that Fayadh has denied the charges, which stem from a published book of his poetry and from a complaint lodged by a man who accused Fayadh of making blasphemous statements during a heated discussion at a cafe.

MALI began a three-day mourning period with flags flying at half-staff yesterday for victims of the assault on a luxury hotel full of foreigners, a day after a dueling claim of responsibility emerged. The Islamic extremist group, Al-Mourabitoun, that first claimed responsibility for Friday’s assault issued a new audio recording identifying the two gunmen, according to a Mauritanian news site that often receives messages from Malian extremists.

KENYA’s president yesterday declared corruption a national security threat and he presented a raft of measures to fight the graft that is endemic in East Africa’s largest economy.

IRAN Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was in Tehran yesterday for talks with Iranian leaders expected to focus on the Syrian crisis and an international peace plan intended to end the conflict. The visit comes as Russia, the US, France and others are talking about possible joint action against the Islamic State group. Putin’s trip also comes on the heels of agreement on an incomplete peace plan that calls for talks between Syrian President Bashar Assad and his foes.