World Briefs

CHINA  Responding to sharply worded comments from the U.S. defense secretary, China yesterday defended its building of artificial islands in the South China Sea and accused Washington of stirring up trouble in the economically vital region. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said no outside actors have the right to dictate to China in an area it claims as its sovereign territory.

CHINA Poor construction and lax safety checks are being blamed for China nursing home fire that killed 38.

CHINA-USA Chinese and American authors gathered Wednesday to protest a major U.S. book fair’s focus on China that they say ignores the country’s glaring problems of censorship and intimidation. Jonathan Franzen, Xiaolu Guo, Andrew Solomon, Ha Jin and others stood outside the main New York Public Library to demand that China free Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo and professor Ilham Tohti from prison, stop restricting other writers and have the confidence to allow free speech.

MYANMAR  The Dalai Lama urges Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon and a fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate, to speak out to protect her country’s persecuted Rohingya Muslims.

MYANMAR  Journalists negotiate with Myanmar officials to restore their access to the Parliament chamber after being pushed out because pictures of snoozing lawmakers were published online.

INDIA Eating onions, lying in the shade and splashing in rivers, Indians are doing whatever they can to stay cool during a brutal heat wave that has killed more than 1,400 in the past month.

SYRIA  Al-Qaida’s branch in Syria has no plans to attack the West but warns that they might retaliate if airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition continue to target them, the leader of the group says in an interview with an Arab TV station.

USA Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul is blaming his own party for the rise of the Islamic State group. The senator from Kentucky said Wednesday that the Republicans’ foreign policy hawks “created these people.” That assertion led potential 2016 rival Bobby Jindal, Louisiana’s governor, to say Paul was unqualified to be president.

UK-EU Prime Minister David Cameron has set off on a whirlwind visit to four European capitals, pressing his case that Britain needs to renegotiate its relationship with the 27 other members of the bloc. It will be a tough sell. France’s foreign minister signaled resistance to any major concessions on Britain’s push for less centralized EU control.