World briefs

INDONESIA An AirAsia plane that crashed last month with 162 people on board was climbing at an abnormally high rate, then plunged and suddenly disappeared from radar, Indonesia’s transport minister said yesterday. Ignasius Jonan told Parliament that radar data showed the Airbus A320 was climbing at about 6,000 feet a minute before it disappeared on Dec. 28.

CHINA’s leadership has issued guidelines requiring universities to strengthen ideological controls in classrooms and telling professors to champion Marxism, traditional culture and socialist core values. The orders come as President Xi Jinping tightens his grip on political power and cracks down on the encroachment of supposed Western values such as press freedom and civil society groups.
Taiwan Six Taiwanese firefighters were killed early yesterday when a burning roof collapsed on them in a bowling alley, media reports said. Taiwan’s official Central News Agency said firefighters had rescued two brothers from the bowling alley, which was closed at the time. Other firefighters were then trapped when metal supports gave way and the roof fell on them in Taoyuan city south of Taipei.

ISRAEL Beating their chests and chanting “Death to Israel,” thousands of Hezbollah supporters march in a funeral procession for a prominent Hezbollah fighter killed with five other members of the militant Shiite group in an Israeli airstrike the day before in Syria’s Golan Heights.

USA-CUBA American officials head to Havana with fairly modest goals of cooperation with the Cuban government, seeking an end to restrictions on the U.S. Interests Section there so that an embassy can eventually be established.

VATICAN CITY Pope Francis is firmly upholding church teaching banning contraception, but says that Catholics don’t have to breed “like rabbits” and should instead practice “responsible parenting.”

FRANCE Five Russians of Chechen origin have been arrested in southern France, including one with a cache of explosives, a local mayor said yesterday as four other men appeared at a court in Paris, the first to face charges in the Paris terror attacks.