World briefs

CHINA’s government said Arsenal forward Mesut Ozil was “blinded and misled” when he criticized Beijing’s crackdown on ethnic Muslims in Xinjiang. The government said Ozil was welcome to visit the northwest region and “look around.” “I don’t know if Mr. Mesut Ozil has ever visited Xinjiang. It seems that he was blinded and misled by some false reports and untrue words,” a foreign ministry spokesman said. 

PHILIPPINES Rescuers pulled out two bodies yesterday from a three-story building that collapsed in a strong earthquake in the southern Philippines and scrambled to find at least seven more people who were trapped inside. At least five people died in Sunday’s magnitude 6.9 quake.

NEW ZEALAND  New Zealanders observed a minute’s silence yesterday at the moment that a volcano erupted a week earlier, killing 18 people and leaving others with severe burns. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that wherever people were in New Zealand or around the world, it was an opportunity to stand alongside those who had lost loved ones in the tragedy.

US A senior U.S. diplomat said yesterday that Washington won’t accept a year-end deadline set by North Korea to make concessions in stalled nuclear talks and urged Pyongyang to return to a negotiating table immediately. “On this point, let me be clear: The U.S. does not have a deadline,” said Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea.

INDIA Thousands of university students flooded the streets of New Delhi, while a southern state government led a march and demonstrators held a silent protest in the northeast to protest a new law giving citizenship to non-Muslims who entered India illegally to flee religious persecution in several neighboring countries. 

NEPAL A bus carrying Hindu pilgrims drove off a highway and crashed in Nepal over the weekend, killing 14 people and injuring 18, police said. The pilgrims were returning home after visiting the famed Hindu Kalinchowk Bhagwati temple when the bus veered off the highway about 80 km east of Kathmandu, police said.

UK PM Boris Johnson gave a pep talk yesterday to his new group of Conservative Party lawmakers as he begins his push to secure Parliamentary approval for his Brexit deal. Johnson welcomed some 100 newly elected colleagues, many of them coming from areas were once the strongholds of the opposition Labour Party. 

GERMANY Chancellor Angela Merkel meets top German business and union officials to discuss how to attract skilled workers from outside the European Union as the country tries to tackle a shortfall of qualified labor. Legislation is due to take effect March 1 making it easier for non-EU nationals to get visas to work and seek jobs in Germany.