World Briefs

AFGHANISTAN A Taliban suicide bomber strikes the entrance to the Afghan parliament and gunmen try to storm the heavily guarded compound, setting off a gun battle with police that leaves two people dead as lawmakers meet inside to vote on the appointment of a new defense minister. Afghan security forces repel the attack, killing all seven gunmen. More on p13

NORTH KOREA Warnings are appearing on Instagram accounts in North Korea that claim access to the popular photo-sharing app is being denied and the site blacklisted for harmful content.

NORTH KOREA’s most famous luxury hotel is operating normally despite a fire earlier this month around a raised walkway linking its twin towers that was widely reported abroad.

S KOREA-JAPAN The leaders of South Korea and Japan attend separate ceremonies in their respective capitals marking the 50th anniversary of the resumption of normal ties — small, mostly symbolic moves that could signal an easing of abysmal relations between the key U.S. allies.

MALAYSIAN authorities give a Muslim burial to 21 human trafficking victims, believed to be Rohingya Muslim refugees, found in shallow graves in jungles bordering Thailand.

AUSTRALIA The Australian, Malaysian and Dutch governments will hold services on July 17 to mark the first anniversary of the shooting down of a Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine with the loss of 298 lives, Australia’s prime minister says.

INDONESIA An Indonesian court denies the final appeal of a French citizen who faces execution for drug offenses, setting the stage for diplomatic retaliation by France after executions of other foreigners strained relations with Australia and Brazil.

PITCAIRN ISLAND, a tiny speck in the Pacific that’s home to just 48 people, has passed a law allowing same-sex marriage — but has no gay couples wanting to wed. Islanders are descended from the mutineers of the British navy vessel Bounty and their Tahitian companions.

LUXEMBOURG The European Union yesterday extended economic sanctions against Russia until January to keep pressure on Moscow over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, drawing a rebuke and a warning of retaliation from Russian officials. An EU statement said the decision was taken without debate by the bloc’s foreign ministers at a meeting in Luxembourg, in response to “Russia’s destabilizing role in eastern Ukraine.”

INDIA Police arrest two men suspected of kidnapping and killing a journalist in central Madhya Pradesh state. Sandeep Kothari was abducted by a group of men who beat him to death and then burned his body and left it near a railway track in Katangi town, police Superintendent Neeraj Soni said.

INDIA The death toll in Mumbai’s spurious liquor tragedy has risen to nearly 100, with more people dying in hospital since Sunday, a senior police officer said yesterday. “The death toll may rise as 45 people are still undergoing treatment in a hospital, where the conditions of many are said to be serious,” he said on condition of anonymity. The police have so far arrested five in connection with the deaths and suspended eight cops for being in collusion with the suspects, the officer said.

VIETNAM-MALAYSIA Eight Indonesians apprehended last week have confessed to hijacking a Malaysian oil tanker, a Vietnamese official says.