World Briefs

CHINA A man slashed a Chinese woman to death and injured her French companion in one of Beijing’s busiest shopping districts in broad daylight yesterday, police said. The attack occurred right outside a Uniqlo store in the vibrant Sanlitun area also known for its many bars. Police detained the suspect but offered no motive, and their online statement identified him only as a 25-year-old Chinese man whose family name is Gao. Police say both victims were rushed to a hospital, where the woman died.

S KOREA’s President Park Geun-hye yesterday pardoned a tycoon convicted of embezzlement who heads the country’s third-largest business group. The justice ministry said in a statement that SK Group’s Chey Tae-won will be among some 6,500 people to be released from prison before the 70th anniversary Saturday of Korea’s liberation from Japan’s colonial occupation. It said the government decided on pardons for 14 business people including Chey based on their contributions to the national economy.

THAILAND’s military-installed prime minister defends a new law that places tight restrictions on public gatherings and warns it will be strictly enforced.

PAKISTAN-INDIA  A top Pakistani government official says Islamabad has accepted an invitation from India for a meeting between security advisers from the two nuclear-armed rival nations later this month.

INDIA An explosion tears through a mosque complex in the insurgency-wracked Indian portion of Kashmir, wounding nine worshippers.

AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN The Afghan government sends a high-level delegation to Pakistan to discuss an action plan after Islamabad-hosted peace talks with the Taliban were suspended last month.

AUSTRALIA-SYRIA  Australia is considering joining airstrikes against Islamic State fighters in Syria, the prime minister says.

NIGERIA  Rescuers pulled bodies of two crew members from the water yesterday, with an Oklahoma man among six killed when a helicopter flying from an offshore oil rig plunged into a lagoon in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos.

DENMARK A 36-year-old Eritrean man has confessed to the deadly stabbing of two people at an Ikea store in central Sweden, his defense lawyer said yesterday. Per-Ingvar Ekblad said the suspect accepted a court’s decision to hold him in custody for two weeks over the stabbing of a woman and her adult son on Monday in Vasteras, west of Stockholm. The motive was unclear but Sweden’s Migration Agency said it met with the man to discuss his case hours before the attack, adding his deportation was imminent after his application for a residency permit had been rejected.

AFGHANISTAN Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has purportedly pledged his group’s allegiance to the new leader of the Taliban following the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar. The pledge came in a 10-minute audio recording that surfaced on social media and was later carried by the SITE Intelligence Group. The recording, which resembles previous audio clips released by the al-Qaida leader, pledges allegiance to Mullah Omar’s successor, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor.