World briefs

TAIWAN President Tsai Ing-wen said yesterday that the self-governing island’s democracy remains under direct threat from rival China, underscoring her calls for closer ties with the U.S. and other allies.

Tsai said she would preserve Taiwan’s freedoms and way of life, but would make no changes to the constitution or the island’s official name, the Republic of China.  

SOUTH KOREA The Constitutional Court yesterday rejected a petition seeking the repeal of a 2015 deal with Japan settling a bitter dispute over Korean women enslaved for sex by the Japanese military during World War II. A decision to spike the largely stalled deal could have complicated efforts by the two countries to resolve separate thorny trade and history disputes, which recently plunged their ties to the lowest point in decades.

YEMEN A ballistic missile attack ripped through a military parade for a Yemeni southern separatist group that’s backed by the United Arab Emirates, killing at least six troops and three children, a spokesman said yesterday.

GUINEA-BISSAU Two former prime ministers of Guinea-Bissau are vying for the presidency in a runoff election yesterday after the incumbent failed to reach the second round in the tumultuous West African country once described by the United Nations as a narco-state.

TURKEY’s defense chief yesterday that his country’s troops won’t evacuate their 12 observation posts in rebel-held northwestern Syria. That’s even as a Syrian government offensive pushed deeper into Idlib province, the last remaining opposition stronghold. Turkey — a strong backer of some of the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces — has a dozen observation posts in Idlib province, as part of an agreement reached last year with Russia, a main supporter of Assad.

GERMANY Lufthansa’s low-cost carrier Eurowings has canceled more than 170 flights scheduled for today, tomorrow and Wednesday due to a strike by flight attendants at sister company Germanwings. The cancellations mostly affect flights within Germany from airports that include Cologne-Bonn, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and Duesseldorf.

UK A group of politicians from Britain’s opposition Labour Party have called for “fundamental change” within their party’s leadership. The comments follow a parliamentary election earlier this month that gave Labour its worst election defeat since 1935 and made pro-Brexit Prime Minister Boris Johnson the most electorally successful leader of the Conservative Party since Margaret Thatcher.