World briefs

CHINA Search teams recover the bodies of 21 Chinese coal miners who died when the shaft where they were working filled with water. More than 600 rescuers had been working to pump water from the shaft and drill holes from the surface at the Jiangjiawan mine near the northern city of Datong.

AFGHANISTAN The Taliban storms a police checkpoint in a northwestern province and kills nine border guards, while a roadside bombing kills six civilians in the country’s southwest.

JAPAN Two Japanese Cabinet ministers visit a Tokyo shrine that honors the country’s war dead, including convicted war criminals a day after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

PAKISTAN The Pakistani military say the air force has pounded militant hideouts in a tribal region along the Afghan border, killing 20 suspected militants.

THAILAND-USA Modern-day slavery persists around the world, including the abuse of fishermen in the Thai seafood industry whose catch can end up in U.S. markets, a congressional panel is told.

MALAYSIA-MEXICO Three Mexican brothers and two other people lose their final appeals against death sentences for drug trafficking.

YEMEN’s Shiite rebels pressed their offensive in the country’s south yesterday as a Saudi-led coalition bombarded them from the air in at least six cities, less than two days after announcing the end of a monthlong campaign against the Iran-supported militants.

RUSSIA-CHECHNYA The head of Chechnya has allowed local security forces to open fire on Russian federal troops if they operate in the region without his approval. Ramzan Kadyrov’s Wednesday comments send a worrying sign about a potential rift between him and the Kremlin.

FRANCE’s prime minister says investigators are searching for possible accomplices in the planned attack on a church uncovered when the suspect apparently shot himself by accident.

USA An American and an Italian held hostage by al-Qaida, as well as two Americans working with the terror group, were inadvertently killed by U.S. drone strikes earlier this year, the government revealed yesterday. President Barack Obama said he took “full responsibility” for the counterterror missions and offered his “grief and condolences” to the families of the hostages.

GERMANY A former Auschwitz guard being tried on 300,000 counts of accessory to murder has testified that it was clear to him Jews were not expected to leave the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland alive. “I couldn’t imagine that” happening, former SS Sgt. Oskar Groening told the Lueneburg state court yesterday during the third day of his trial, the dpa news agency reported.