World briefs

CHINA yesterday launched a rocket from a mobile platform at sea for the first time, sending five commercial satellites and two others containing experimental technology into space. 

CHINA President Xi Jinping is talking up the Chinese economy’s resilience as he heads to Moscow for a state visit affirming increasingly close ties between the former Cold War rivals.

KOREA South Korea said yesterday the North has so far ignored its calls for joint efforts to stem the spread of highly contagious African swine fever following an outbreak near North Korea’s border with China.

INDIA officials say they will airdrop mountaineers at a site on a Himalayan mountain where pilots spotted five bodies while searching for a missing team of foreign climbers.

AUSTRALIA Lawyers for the most senior Roman Catholic found guilty of child sex abuse argued in his appeal yesterday that he could not have molested two choirboys in an Australian cathedral undetected moments after Sunday Masses while he was dressed in an archbishop’s robes.

SUDAN Protest leaders dismissed a call yesterday for talks with the ruling generals, saying the military cannot be serious about negotiations while troops keep shooting and killing protesters. The military’s violent crackdown has already claimed 60 lives this week.

GERMANY A former nurse on trial on allegations he killed 100 patients at two hospitals in northern Germany apologized to his victims’ relatives in a final statement to the court yesterday, saying he realized how much pain and suffering he had caused with his “terrible deeds.”

UK World leaders including U.S. President Donald Trump gathered yesteday on the south coast of England to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. But the stars of the show were the elderly veterans of that campaign who said they were surprised by all the attention: They were just doing their jobs. 

USA San Francisco officials decided yesterday (local time) to force some people with serious mental illness and drug addiction into treatment, even if it goes against the spirit of a city known for its fierce protection of civil rights.