World briefs

CHINA At least seven coal miners were killed and 13 left trapped after a shaft flooded at a mine in northern China, state media reported yesterday. More than 600 rescue workers were pumping water and drilling holes from the surface in hopes of reaching those still inside the Jiangjiawan mine near the city of Datong, the reports said.

JAPAN’s space agency is considering an unmanned mission to the moon by 2018 or early 2019, part of an effort to beef up aerospace technology and keep pace with China and other emerging powers. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, included the possibility of a lunar landing in the fiscal year that begins April 1, 2018, in its summary of moon exploration plans by Japan and other countries.

JAPAN-USA  The U.S. and Japan need further work to resolve differences on autos and farm exports that are hindering progress toward a Pacific Rim trade deal, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said yesterday.
AUSTRALIA-VIETNAM  The United Nations refugee agency said yesterday that it had raised concerns with Australian authorities that a boatload of Vietnamese asylum seekers had their refugee applications rejected at sea before the Australian navy secretly returned them to Vietnam. The 46 Vietnamese were offloaded from an Australian navy ship at the port city of Vung Tau last Friday, local Australian media reports said.

AUSTRALIA A fierce storm lashing Australia’s southeast destroyed homes, left dozens stranded in swirling floodwaters and may have led to the deaths of three people, officials said yesterday. The storm, which has been pounding Sydney and other parts of New South Wales state since Monday, has dumped more than 30 cm of rain in some areas, with wind gusts more than 100 kilometers per hour.

INDONESIA An Indonesian court found an American couple guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced them to prison yesterday in the killing of the woman’s mother on the resort island of Bali. The Denpasar District Court sentenced Tommy Schaefer to 18 years in prison and Heather Mack to 10 years for intentionally killing Sheila von Wiese-Mack while vacationing last August. The badly battered body was found stuffed in a suitcase inside the trunk of a taxi at the St. Regis Bali Resort.

GERMANY Former Auschwitz “accountant” Oskar Groening goes on trial on 300,000 counts of accessory to murder. The case is the first to test a line of German legal reasoning which has unleashed an 11th hour wave of new investigations.

YEMEN  Saudi-led airstrikes target weapons caches held by Iran-backed Shiite rebels in Yemen’s capital, as tensions rise at sea as the United States sends an aircraft carrier to the region to prepare to block Iran’s access.