World briefs

CHINA After more than a decade of rapid growth, Chinese travel to the U.S. is falling. And that has cities, malls and other tourist spots scrambling to reverse the trend. Travel from China to the U.S. fell 5.7% in 2018 to 2.9 million visitors.

MALAYSIA will send back some 3,000 metric tons of non-recyclable plastic waste to countries such as the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia in a move to avoid becoming a dumping ground for rich nations, Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin said yesterday.

INDONESIA Four top officials, including two Cabinet ministers and the national spy chief, were targeted for assassination as part of a plot possibly linked to last week’s election riots, police said yesterday. 

JAPAN A man carrying a knife in each hand and screaming “I will kill you!” attacked a group of schoolgirls near a school bus parked at a bus stop just outside Tokyo yesterday, killing two and injuring 17 before killing himself, officials said. 

NORTH KOREA People working in hundreds of thriving markets that sprung up with the failure of the country’s public system for distributing basic goods are often abused and forced to resort to bribery to survive, according to a U.N. report released yesterday. 

NEPAL’s reluctance to limit the number of permits it issues to scale Mount Everest has contributed to dangerous overcrowding, with inexperienced climbers impeding others and causing deadly delays, seasoned mountaineers said.

AFGHANISTAN Officials say two Taliban attacks targeted Afghan security checkpoints in the country’s west and east, killing at least 23 members of the security forces.

BRAZIL Forty-two inmates were killed at three different prisons in the capital of Brazil’s northern Amazonas state, authorities reported, a day after 15 died during fighting among prisoners at a fourth prison in the same city.

EUROPEAN UNION leaders are converging on Brussels to haggle over who should lead the 28-nation bloc’s key institutions for the next five years after weekend elections shook up Europe’s political landscape.

USA A rapid-fire line of apparent tornadoes tore across Indiana and Ohio overnight, packed so closely together that one crossed the path carved by another. The storms strew debris so thick that at one point, highway crews had to use snowplows to clear an interstate.