World Briefs

CHINA is considering offering criminals who helped repel Japanese invaders more than 70 years ago a get-out-of-jail-free card now. Legislation proposed as part of events marking the end of World War II would offer amnesty to four groups of convicts, including those who served in the global conflict, the official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. The program would also consider for leniency inmates younger than 18 or older than 74 and deemed not to pose a threat to society.

JAPAN Multiple explosions and a large fire at a U.S. Army depot lit up the night sky in a Tokyo suburb early yesterday. No injuries were reported.

JAPAN-PHILIPPINES Typhoon Goni lashed the southern Japanese islands of Okinawa with heavy rains and winds yesterday, as the death toll rose to 19 in the northern Philippines. The latest victims include a 9-month-old boy and his 2-year-old sister who drowned in flash floods.

BANGLADESH A magistrate in northeastern Bangladesh indicted 10 men and issued arrest warrants for three alleged fugitives yesterday in the beating death of a 13-year-old boy in a case that stunned a nation used to violent crime because a video of him being tortured was posted online. Magistrate Shahedul Karim made the decision and fixed Aug. 31 for next hearing, prosecution counsel Misbahuddin Siraj said. The boy, Samiul Islam Rajon, died of internal bleeding after being attacked in the northeastern city of Sylhet.

NEPAL has opened Mount Everest to climbers for the first time since an earthquake-triggered avalanche in April killed 19 mountaineers and ended the popular spring climbing season.

UK Police say the death toll in the crash of a vintage jet fighter in southeastern England will probably rise as emergency workers clear away wreckage on the freeway where the plane went down. Assistant Chief Constable Steve Barry of Sussex Police told the BBC yesterday that he’d be surprised if the number of deaths “doesn’t go above” the 11 currently known. But Barry said he “would be really surprised if it would be more than 20.” The Hawker Hunter jet plummeted onto a highway Saturday after it failed to pull out of a loop maneuver during the Shoreham Airshow, exploding in a huge fireball and plowing through cars on the road.

USA With Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid now on board, President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran seems to be picking up the momentum it needs to survive fierce opposition from its Republican and Israeli opponents.

CANADA The hack of the cheating website Ashley Madison has triggered extortion crimes and led to two unconfirmed reports of suicides, Canadian police said yesterday. The company behind Ashley Madison is offering a USD500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of members of a group that hacked the site. Hackers last week released detailed records on millions of people registered with the website.

GUATEMALA President Otto Perez Molina has apologized to Guatemalans for a corruption scandal that has thrown the country into political crisis, but insists he will not resign his post and that his conscious is clear. Perez made his remarks late Sunday about the customs fraud scandal in which businesspeople paid kickbacks to officials to avoid import duties. The scheme is believed to have defrauded the state of millions of dollars.