World briefs

CHINA-SOUTH AFRICA  South African President Jacob Zuma met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang yesterday at the start of a visit to Beijing focused on economic relations, including possible Chinese investment in South Africa’s nuclear power sector.

USA-CHINA The world is watching how China deals with Hong Kong and its commitments to preserve freedoms there amid continuing tensions over prodemocracy protests, the United States’ top diplomat for East Asia said Wednesday. Daniel Russel told a Senate panel the U.S. supports the right of citizens to a free election for its chief executive in 2017.

KENYA Police in Kenya say they have arrested 77 Chinese nationals who were allegedly running an elaborate money laundering and Internet fraud scheme from multiple houses.

THAILAND Two Myanmar migrant workers are indicted for the killings of two British tourists on a resort island in a case that has raised concerns about tourist safety and Thai police conduct.

JAPAN’s ruling party may be headed toward an even larger-than-anticipated victory in upcoming national elections, according to major media polls published yesterday. The Liberal Democratic Party could take more than 300 of the 475 seats in Japan’s lower house election on Dec. 14, Japan’s major newspapers and Kyodo news service said, based on voter surveys each did.

NEW ZEALAND Troubled AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd was detained by police yesterday after getting into a scuffle with a witness in his pending court case but was released again on bail without facing further charges. Rudd’s lawyer Paul Mabey said Rudd appeared in court in his home town of Tauranga, accused of breaching his bail conditions by associating with a witness.

RUSSIA A gun battle breaks out in the capital of Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, leaving at least three traffic police officers and six gunmen dead. The fighting punctures the patina of stability ensured by years of heavy-handed rule by a Kremlin-appointed leader.

RUSSIA In an annual speech ranging from economy to school tests, Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday evoked religious imagery and defended the Kremlin’s aggressive foreign policy as necessary for his country’s sheer survival. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in March following the ouster of Pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and was later accused of supplying pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in ammunition and manpower.