World Briefs

JAPAN Even as Japan remains divided over proposed changes in the role it should play in regional security issues, senior U.S. and Japanese military officers say they hope the Japanese navy may soon be freed up to play a more active role in the Pacific and beyond, plying some of the world’s most hotly contested waters.

VIETNAM Workers at a major Vietnamese footwear factory for Nike and Adidas ended a weeklong strike after the government agreed to their demands on retirement payouts.

AUSTRALIA Prince Harry arrives in Australia’s national capital next week to begin four weeks of training with the Australian army before the British royal ends his decade-long military career. The fourth in line to the British throne will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Canberra on Monday in his first public function on arriving in Australia.

TURKEY’s military says that nine British citizens have been arrested trying to cross into Syria. They were taken into custody in Hatay province, the military said. The group of three men, two women and four children, was seized by the military while trying to sneak across the border yesterday.

YEMEN Security officials say Shiite rebels and their allies have captured the presidential palace in Aden following heavy clashes in the commercial center of this southern coastal city. Yesterday’s capture came despite week-long airstrikes in Yemen by a Saudi-led coalition trying to halt the advance of the rebels known as Houthis.

AFGHANISTAN A suicide bomber attacked an anti-corruption demonstration in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, killing 16 people and wounding up to 60, officials said. The explosion in the eastern city of Khost wounded a local member of parliament, Hamayun Hamayoon.

GERMANY Germanwings said yesterday it was unaware that the co-pilot of its plane which crashed in the French Alps last week had suffered from depression during his pilot training. “We didn’t know this,” said Vanessa Torres, a spokeswoman for the Lufthansa subsidiary, which hired Lubitz in September 2013.

USA Faced with lowest snow level in the Sierra Nevada snowpack in 65 years of record-keeping, California’s governor orders officials to impose statewide mandatory water restrictions for the first time in history.

USA Joni Mitchell’s famous fans are voicing their support and worry for the folk song icon while she is hospitalized in Los Angeles. “Harry Potter” star Emma Watson said Wednesday on Twitter: “heard about Joni and haven’t been able to concentrate all morning. So hope she’s doing ok.”