World briefs

THAILAND Four paramilitary volunteers were killed yesterday while guarding a school in southern Thailand, the latest of several recent attacks in a region troubled by a Muslim separatist insurgency since 2004.

INDONESIA’s military said a Papuan rebel was killed and a soldier injured in a gunbattle, the latest spasm of violence to hit the country’s troubled easternmost region.

BANGLADESH Police fired tear gas and swung batons as thousands of garment workers demonstrated for better wages for a fourth day, shutting down factories on the outskirts of the capital.

INDIA’s Parliament has approved a bill providing a 10 percent quota in government jobs for the poor members of upper castes who have been excluded from existing quotas for low-ranking castes.

YEMEN A bomb-laden drone launched by Yemen’s Shiite rebels exploded over a military parade for the Saudi-led coalition and its allies yesterday near the southern port city of Aden, killing at least six people in a brazen attack.

SYRIA Turkey’s foreign minister says a planned Turkish military offensive against U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria doesn’t depend on whether the United States withdraws its troops from the region.

HUNGARY’s objective for the upcoming European Parliament elections is for “anti-immigration forces” to become a majority in all European Union institutions, including Parliament and the EU’s executive Commission, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said yesterday.

SPAIN’s far-right Vox party has staked its claim to a place in the political mainstream, dropping its more extremist positions to help form a regional government in Andalusia as far-right parties build their influence across Europe. 

BRITAIN As Brexit enters its endgame, the big divide is not between the U.K. and the European Union, but between Britain’s government and Parliament. Prime Minister Theresa May is struggling to win backing for the agreement ahead of Parliament’s vote next week while lawmakers try to grab control of the Brexit process.

MEXICO Authorities said yesterday that 21 bodies, some burned, have been found in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas in what appears to have been a clash between drug gangs.