World briefs

CHINA A tour bus on a highway in Tibet falls off a 10-meter cliff after crashing into an SUV and a pickup, killing 44 people and injuring 11 others, China’s state media report. More on p10

TURKEY Turks are voting in their first direct presidential election — a watershed event in Turkey’s 91-year history, where the president was previously elected by Parliament. Prime Minister RecepTayyip Erdogan (pictured), who has dominated the country’s politics for the past decade, is the strong front-runner to replace the incumbent, Abdullah Gul, for a five-year term.
MYANMAR  To improve relations with the United States, Myanmar must make progress in its democratic transition and halt what Washington sees as backsliding on commitments to improve human rights, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry tells the country’s leaders. More on p12

SYRIA-IRAQ Thousands of members of a religious minority group under attack by Islamic extremists have fled across the border from Iraq to seek refuge with the Kurds of northeastern Syria, say two Kurdish officials and an activist. Ekrem Hasso and Juan Mohammad tell The Associated Press that the Yazidis fled after Kurdish fighters were able to open a safe passage into Syria following clashes with the Islamic State group. More on p15

LIBERIA Riot police race to central Liberia to put down a demonstration by crowds who had blocked the country’s busiest highway to protest the government’s delay in collecting bodies of Ebola victims.

UKRAINE’s rebels are surrounded and ready to agree to a cease-fire to prevent a “humanitarian catastrophe,” the insurgents’ new leader says, as conditions deteriorate in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, artillery thundering through deserted streets.

UGANDA Scores of Ugandan homosexuals march through sprawling botanical gardens in the lakeside town of Entebbe, their first pride parade since a Ugandan court invalidated a controversial anti-gay law. Many marchers wear masks because they do not want to be publicly identified in a country where homosexuals and their supporters face severe discrimination.

USA A local chapter of a civil rights group has called for a federal investigation into the death of a black teenager who was shot by police in a St. Louis suburb. Eighteen-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed Saturday afternoon near his grandmother’s house by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer.