World Briefs

CHINA Five were killed and 18 injured when a car rammed into a group of children crossing a road after leaving their school in northeast China’s Liaoning Province, local authorities said yesterday.

NORTH KOREA The head of the U.N.’s atomic watchdog has called on North Korea to allow inspectors back in to monitor its nuclear program. Director General Yukiya Amano noted that Pyongyang had talked about denuclearization measures including the “permanent dismantlement of the nuclear facilities in Yongbyon” — a reactor where it produces plutonium. 

INDIA Authorities were struggling yesterday to figure out how to recover the body of an American killed after wading ashore on an isolated island cut off from the modern world.

EU-TURKEY The European Union’s foreign policy chief expressed “strong concerns” yesterday over the continued detentions of academics and activists in Turkey.

LEBANON marked 75 years of independence with a military parade yesterday in Beirut, but many anxious Lebanese feel they have little to celebrate: the country’s corruption-plagued economy is dangerously close to collapse and political bickering over shares in a new Cabinet is threatening to scuttle pledges worth USD11 billion by international donors.

ETHIOPIA An opposition figure who recently returned from exile was named Ethiopia’s election chief yesterday as the country prepares for what the reformist prime minister vows will be “free and fair” elections in 2020.

SERBIA’s president has criticized the European Union and the West for allegedly failing to prevent Kosovo from triggering a trade war as tensions soar between the wartime foes.

GERMANY A teenager was convicted of murder yesterday for killing a 14-year-old girl in a case that was seized upon by far-right groups, who falsely claimed that the perpetrator was a migrant.

MEXICO Immigration agents have detained almost all of the Central American migrants on a fourth caravan that recently entered Mexico seeking to reach the United States.

US A family of four whose remains were found at the burned-down ruins of their New Jersey mansion was slain before the home was set ablaze, authorities said, hours after the mansion owner’s brother was arrested on suspicion of arson at his own house.