World briefs

CHINA A mobile app used by police to track citizens in China’s far west region of Xinjiang shows how some of the country’s biggest technology companies are linked to a mass surveillance system that is more sophisticated than previously known, according to a report from Human Rights Watch.

NORTH KOREA State media yesterday showed leader Kim Jong Un observing live-fire drills of long-range multiple rocket launchers and what appeared to be a new short-range ballistic missile, a day after South Korea expressed concern that the launches were a violation of an agreement to cease all hostile acts. 

CYPRUS A man who has confessed to killing seven foreign women and girls in Cyprus is being investigated on additional charges of raping a foreign woman he had photographed as a model, a police investigator said yesterday.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE Israel and Gaza-based militants are digging in for extended fighting after a barrage of hundreds of rockets and retaliatory airstrikes boiled over into a second day, threatening to undo months of Egyptian-brokered efforts to reach a long-term truce. 

VENEZUELA Authorities are investigating the cause of a helicopter crash that killed seven military officers while they were while heading to a state where President Nicolás Maduro was visiting troops.

SYRIA Warplanes struck a hospital in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province yesterday, knocking it out of service, as government forces continued to bombard the rebel-held region following insurgent attacks last week.

UK Britain’s Conservative government and opposition Labour Party have a duty to strike a compromise Brexit agreement to end months of political deadlock over Britain’s exit from the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May said yesterday.

USA A military-chartered jet carrying 143 people landed hard, then bounced and swerved as the pilot struggled to control it amid thunder and lightning, ultimately skidding off the runway and coming to a crashing halt in a river at Naval Air Station Jacksonville.

USA An explosion and fire at an Illinois silicone factory claimed a second victim yesterday (local time) when an employee taken to a hospital after the blast died, a local coroner confirmed, and the official death toll is expected to rise to four as authorities suspended the search for two other bodies believed to be in the rubble.

PANAMA Panamanians were choosing yesterday among seven mostly business-friendly candidates to lead this Central American trade and financial hub for the next five years in a presidential election focusing on corruption and slowing economic growth.