World briefs

USA America’s racial history “still casts its long shadow upon us,” the nation’s first black president said Saturday as he stood in solidarity and remembrance with civil rights activists on the 50th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” march that erupted in police violence in Selma. Thousands packed the riverside town for commemorations of the march of March 7, 1965, in what became the first of three aiming to reach Montgomery, Alabama, to demand an end to discrimination against black voters and all victims of segregation.

CHINA-JAPAN China’s foreign minister has renewed calls for Japanese leaders to abandon any attempt to water down the nation’s guilt over its World War II aggression against China and others.

CHINA A well-known Chinese feminist activist was detained in Beijing two days before the observance of International Women’s Day, her lawyer said Saturday. Lawyer Yan Xin said he didn’t know why police detained activist Li Tingting and an unspecified number of others. He said he had not been able to talk to his client. Messages on the microblog Weibo said feminist activist Zheng Churan had also been detained by police late Friday in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, but Yan could not confirm the reports.

MALI Three people, including a U.N. soldier, were killed and 14 wounded in a rocket attack early yesterday on a U.N. base in Mali’s northeastern city of Kidal, the United Nations mission in Mali said. More than 30 rockets and shells hit the U.N. base in Kidal at early yesterday morning, killing a U.N. soldier and two civilian children, said Olivier Salgado, the spokesman for the U.N. mission in Mali. An additional 14 people were wounded.

HONG KONG-UK A British parliamentary committee on Friday urged the U.K. government to be more outspoken in support of democracy in Hong Kong, warning that failing to do so could damage Britain’s reputation there. The Foreign Affairs Committee said in a report that Britain “can and should take a position” on democratic reforms in Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

SINGAPORE reduced its forecast for foreign visitor arrivals and tourism receipts this year, citing competition from rival destinations. The city-state forecasts 15.1 million to 15.5 million visitor arrivals and expects S$23.5 billion (USS17.2 billion) to S$24 billion in tourism receipts in 2015, Second Trade Minister S. Iswaran told parliament on Friday. The Singapore Tourism Board earlier had targeted 17 million visitor arrivals and S$30 billion in tourism receipts this year, according to the agency’s website.

AUSTRALIA Two Australian brothers aged 16 and 17 were stopped at Sydney Airport on suspicion that they were young jihadis headed to join the Islamic State group, officials said yesterday.

NEPAL’s only international airport reopened four days after a Turkish Airlines jet skidded and blocked the single runway, the aviation authority says.

UK British police have detained a man who spent the night on the roof of the Palace of Westminster, the seat of Parliament in Britain, on suspicion of criminal damage and trespassing. Scotland Yard said yesterday it was too early to know why the 23-year-old made his way to the top of the building. Emergency services spotted the man just after 9 p.m. Saturday and he was detained early yesterday.