World Briefs

CHINA’s environment ministry said pollutants were reduced by a third in Beijing during this week’s temporary restrictions to reduce heavy smog, which included taking half the city’s cars off the roads. Beijing’s authorities ordered limits on cars, factories and construction sites during a red alert for smog from Tuesday through midday yesterday.

N KOREA-CHINA An all-female band formed by Kim Jong Un will perform behind closed doors in Beijing on a visit to cultivate better ties with China. The Moranbong Band, a group of women who sing and play instruments including violins, electric guitars and keyboards in short dresses and high heels, was set up by the N Korean leader in 2012. The band will play alongside another N Korean musical troupe at Beijing’s National Center for Performing Arts for three nights starting yesterday.

AUSTRALIA Thailand’s highest-ranking police investigator in charge of human trafficking has fled to Australia, telling Australian media yesterday that he feared for his life after his findings implicated “influential people” at home who want to silence him. Police Maj. Gen. Paween Pongsirin told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Guardian Australia newspaper that he was too afraid to return to Thailand and planned to seek political asylum in Australia.

SINGAPORE-AUSTRALIA Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott defended his comments suggesting that Western culture is superior to that of Islam, and called for U.S.-led assistance in defeating the Islamic State group.

S KOREA After a prolonged standoff, South Korean police detained a labor union official for his alleged involvement in organizing anti-government protests that turned violent last month. In a massive show of force, more than 2,000 uniformed police officers surrounded a Buddhist temple where Korean Confederation of Trade Unions President Han Sang-gyun had been holed up for nearly a month.

SWITZERLAND Geneva police were “actively searching” yesterday for suspects in connection with an investigation into the Paris attacks last month, and authorities raised the security alert level in the city and surrounding region, Swiss security officials said.

INDIA  An appeal court acquitted Bollywood star Salman Khan yesterday in a drunken-driving, hit-and-run case from more than a decade ago.

SINGAPORE’s defense minister says that Islamic State fighters pose a “clear and present danger” to Southeast Asia as they return from Syria and Iraq with a mission to establish a caliphate.

GERMANY-KOREA German police have arrested five South Koreans on suspicion of murder following the death of a relative in an exorcism ritual in the city of Frankfurt, prosecutors said yesterday. Officers discovered the body of the 41-year-old woman in a hotel room Saturday when the suspects called a priest after it became apparent that the victim had died, prosecutor Nadja Niesen said.