World briefs

CHINA An explosion in a coal mine in eastern China traps 27 workers underground, state media report. Twelve other miners were lifted out of the privately owned mine in Huainan city in Anhui province after the blast.

ISRAEL The Israeli military said it carried out a series of airstrikes yesterday across the Gaza Strip in response to renewed rocket fire, a burst of violence that broke a temporary cease-fire and endangered negotiations in Egypt over ending the monthlong war between Israel and Hamas. While there were no injuries reported in Israel or Gaza, it remained unclear whether the talks in Egypt would continue.

MALAYSIA The remains of at least 15 Malaysians killed when a jetliner was shot down over Ukraine will be returned to their home country this week, the first Malaysian victims of the disaster to be flown home, the country’s defense minister says. All 298 people on board died when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down on July 17 over an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russia separatists. The victims included 43 Malaysians and 195 Dutch nationals.

UKRAINE The Ukrainian government has captured most of a town near Donetsk, tightening the noose around the key rebel-held stronghold, officials said. Government efforts to quell the pro-Russian separatist front have focused lately on gradually encircling Donetsk, the largest rebel-controlled city.

LIBERIA The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 1,200 people since it began in December 2013, the World Health Organization said. More than 2,200 have been sickened, according to the U.N. health agency’s latest numbers.

IRAQ Skirmishes broke out yesterday between Iraqi security forces and militants on the outskirts of Tikrit, a local official and a resident said, a day after the Iraqi and Kurdish troops backed by U.S. airstrikes dislodged Islamic militants from a strategic dam in the country’s north.

ARGENTINA Three relatives of Pope Francis died and a fourth was in critical condition yesterday after a car crash on a provincial highway in Argentina, the Vatican and a local police official said. The small car carrying a nephew of the pope along with the man’s wife and two young children slammed into the back of a truck, said Highway Police Superintendent Jorge Raineri. The crash killed the wife and children, one 2 years old and the other 8 months.

USA The National Guard arrived in Ferguson but kept its distance from the streets where protesters clashed again with police, as clouds of tear gas and smoke hung over the St. Louis suburb where Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer.

INDIA A passenger train strikes a crowded rickshaw, killing 21 people at a railway crossing in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, a railway official says. All the passengers and the driver of the motorized rickshaw died in the accident in Bihar, he says.

JAPAN’s military is showcasing its ability to defend remote islands, as its role expands at home and abroad under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The military began large-scale annual “Fire Power” exercises at the foot of Mount Fuji. Defense officials said the exercises, which last until Sunday, are aimed at repelling a hypothetical invasion of far-off Japanese islands.