World briefs

CHINA Engulfed in choking smog, some northern Chinese cities limited the number of cars on roads and temporarily shut down factories yesterday to cut down pollution during a national “red alert.” More than 700 companies stopped production in Beijing and dozens of other cities closed schools and took other emergency measures.

VIETNAM A court in northern Vietnam sentenced two activists to more than 10 years in prison each for attempted subversion. The two were convicted during the one-day trial of attempting to overthrow the communist government.

INDONESIA Police detained several hundred people at protests around the country demanding independence for remote West Papua. Arrests were made in cities in Sulawesi, Java and Papua but demonstrations went ahead in at least 15 places.

MYANMAR Malaysia, the most outspoken of Myanmar’s neighbors over its treatment of its Muslim ethnic Rohingya minority, told a meeting of regional foreign ministers of its “grave concern” over the violence allegedly carried out by Myanmar’s military.

SOUTH KOREA The jailed confidante of impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye denied on the first day of her trial yesterday that she used her ties to Park to extort money from big companies. 

AUSTRALIA-FRANCE The Australian and French defense ministers said they have given top priority to concealing design details of a new Australian submarine after data was leaked from French shipbuilder DCNS about a submarine built for India. 

INDIA Investigators said the leader of a Pakistan-based militant group and three others should face trial for an attack on a military air base in northern India that left seven Indian soldiers dead last January.

RUSSIA-NATO Ambassadors of NATO and Russia are meeting in a fresh attempt to improve relations, which have sunk to their lowest ebb since the Cold War. The diplomats met in Brussels yesterday, with the military alliance insisting on talking about the conflict in Ukraine and Russia’s role there. 

SYRIA A fragile cease-fire was back on in Syria yesterday, as buses resumed evacuating those still remaining in eastern Aleppo following days of delays, and others departed with the sick and wounded from two rebel-besieged Shiite villages in the country’s north.

GERMANY’s highest court has rejected a string of complaints against a decision by the country’s parliament to label the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago as genocide.