World Briefs

INDONESIA A flash flood hit hundreds of students and teachers who were hiking along a river on Indonesia’s main island of Java, killing at least eight of the students, officials said. Two others were reported missing.

JAPAN Emperor Naruhito, marking his 60th birthday, offered his sympathy to those affected by the new virus, as concerns over infections forced the traditional gathering of tens of thousands of well-wishers outside the royal palace to be canceled. This birthday is a special one for Naruhito, his first since becoming emperor. Sixty is considered a landmark age in the Japanese zodiac calendar.

IRAN The health ministry raised the death toll from the new coronavirus to eight yesterday, amid concerns that clusters there as well as in Italy and South Korea could signal a serious new stage in its global spread. There were now 43 confirmed cases of the illness in Iran, health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour told state TV.

TURKEY Nine people were killed in Turkey in a magnitude 5.7 earthquake that struck western Iran yesterday, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said. The quake centered west of the Iranian city of Khoy and affected villages in the Turkish province of Van.

INDIA The sun-baked city of Ahmedabad was jostling with activity yesterday as workers cleaned roads, planted flowers and hoisted hundreds of billboards featuring President Donald Trump, a day ahead of his maiden two-day visit to India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised him a boisterous public reception.

SERBIA has received a sophisticated anti-aircraft system from Russia, despite possible U.S. sanctions against the Balkan state, which is formally seeking European Union membership. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told the pro-government TV Prva yesterday that the Pantsir S1 air-defense system was purchased after suggestions from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia Bus drivers in Moscow kept their WhatsApp group chat buzzing with questions this week about what to do if they spotted passengers who might be from China riding with them in the Russian capital. “Some Asian-looking (people) have just got on. Probably Chinese. Should I call (the police)?” one driver messaged his peers.

GERMANY Berlin is freezing the rents of 1.5 million apartments for the next five years starting this Sunday in a controversial move to control the exploding costs that have forced many to move outside Germany’s capital city.

ITALY Scrambling to contain rapidly soaring number of new coronavirus infections in northern Italy, authorities yesterday stepped up measures to ban public gatherings, including stopping Venice’s famed carnival events, which has drawn tens of thousands of revelers to a region that is now in the heart of the outbreak.