World Briefs

CHINA As international markets watch anxiously, China is due to release a flood of data today that is likely to show economic growth slowed in the latest quarter but still is among the world’s strongest.

JORDAN The World Health Organization hopes to eradicate polio in 2016, after containing outbreaks in conflict-ridden Syria, Iraq and Somalia by immunizing millions of children over two years. Christopher Maher, who runs the regional polio eradication program, says there’s a chance to “finish polio forever” this year. He says the disease still occurs in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but that the caseload is dropping.

IRAN plans to increase oil production by 500,000 barrels per day now that sanctions have been lifted under a landmark nuclear deal with world powers. Deputy Oil Minister Roknoddin Javadi says Iran is determined to retake its market share, which plunged after the crippling sanctions were imposed in 2012. His comments were posted on the ministry’s website yesterday. Iran used to export 2.3 million barrels per day but its crude exports fell to 1 million in 2012. Oil prices have recently plummeted to under USD30 a barrel, a 13-year low.

PAKISTAN A bomb blast targeted paramilitary troops yesterday, killing five soldiers and wounding three in the southwestern city of Quetta, officials said. The bombing occurred on the city’s outskirts, said a local police official, Bangul Khan, adding that early indications were that the blast came from a bomb planted near the patrol and detonated by remote control. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

GERMANY Police say they have arrested 40 men in raids in the city of Duesseldorf linked to a long-running investigation of suspected organized theft involving people of North African origin. Yesterday they added that the raids on 18 cafes, gambling houses and bars near the main railway station were planned last year and not triggered by the New Year’s Eve assaults and thefts in nearby Cologne.

TURKEY State-run news agency says four people have been injured in an explosion at a school in the city of Kilis, near the border with Syria. The Anadolu Agency says ambulances took the injured from the Eyup Gokceimam middle school to the public hospital in Kilis. The mayor of Kilis, Hasan Kara, says the cause of the explosion may have been “two or more mortars” fired from Syria.

USA Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra announces world tour Wynton Marsalis is taking the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra on its longest tour in nearly 15 years, covering 15 cities in 10 countries over 40 days. Jazz at Lincoln Center announced yesterday its Blue Engine International Tour, named after its new record label, will begin Feb. 4 at The Olympia in Paris and end March 12 at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington, New Zealand.

JAPAN Members of the decades-old but still hugely popular Japanese pop group SMAP said yesterday they will remain together, ending rumors of a breakup that shocked fans in Japan and elsewhere in Asia. The five members of the group, wearing dark business suits and appearing serious, apologized at the start of their weekly variety TV show for causing concern and sought their fans’ continuing support. In brief comments, some acknowledged that the group was in fact going through a crisis.