World briefs

CZECH REPUBLIC A man in the Czech Republic opened fire yesterday in a restaurant, leaving at least eight people dead, the town’s mayor said. Patrik Kuncar, mayor of the southeastern town of Uherske Brod, also said the gunman, a local man around 60 years old, then killed himself. A waitress from the restaurant was also hospitalized, he said.

AFGHANISTAN Gunmen in southern Afghanistan kidnap 30 members of the Hazara ethnic community, in what appears to be the latest in a series of attacks on Shiites in the predominantly Sunni country.

INDIA The leader of the U.N.’s expert panel on climate change stepped down yesterday amid an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment in his native India. R.K. Pachauri, 75, had chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2002 and accepted the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on its behalf.

NEW ZEALAND will send a small number of troops to Iraq to help train local forces in their battle against the Islamic State group, Prime Minister John Key announces.

SYRIA Islamic State militants have abducted at least 70 Assyrian Christians, including women and children, after overrunning a string of villages in northeastern Syria, two activist groups said.

QATAR  Long seen as inevitable, a 2022 World Cup in November and December is now practically a done deal. A FIFA task force has recommended playing the tournament in Qatar at the end of the year to avoid the summer heat
— where temperatures routinely top 40 degrees — when the World Cup traditionally kicks off in June.

USA Divided Republicans are searching for a way out of an impasse over immigration that is threatening to shut down the Homeland Security Department within days. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he would split language overturning President Barack Obama’s contested immigration measures from the department’s funding bill.

UK Conservative Party lawmaker Malcolm Rifkind quit yesterday as head of the committee overseeing Britain’s intelligence services and announced his retirement from Parliament, after being caught in a hidden-camera sting appearing to discuss swapping political influence for money.