World Briefs

CHINA-USA Federal authorities early yesterday arrested Jason Shiao, a 65-year-old Southern California man they say posed as an attorney, and his 43-year-old daughter, Lynn Leung, on charges of conspiring to commit visa fraud by arranging phony marriages between Chinese citizens seeking legal residency and American spouses. Shiao and Leung’s Pasadena-based business filed more than 70 fraudulent immigration petitions since October 2006, authorities said.

JAPAN launched suicide prevention week, part of a global World Health Organization effort marking yesterday as World Suicide Prevention Day. Though the number of Japanese taking their lives has dipped in the past few years, Japan still has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

INDIA A shortage of brides is an increasingly common problem facing men in northern India, where years of sex-selective abortions have resulted in a skewed male-female ratio.
AUSTRALIA A medical group apologizes to surgeons and trainees in Australia and New Zealand after a report found that almost half had suffered discrimination, bullying and sexual harassment from senior surgeons.

SPAIN For a fourth consecutive year, hundreds of thousands of pro-independence Catalans are gearing up to rally today to break away from Spain, kicking off a fresh secession bid. The massive rally for the Catalan National Day holiday marks the kickoff of campaigning for secessionists who say Catalonia is culturally different from Spain, doesn’t get back what it pays in taxes — and that independence is the only way forward.

RUSSIA-SYRIA Iran has granted permission for Russian planes to fly over its territory en route to Syria, Russian news agencies report, a bypass needed after Bulgaria refused overflights amid signs of a Russian military buildup in Syria that has concerned the U.S. and NATO.

USA Apple stakes a new claim to the living room, as the maker of iPhones and other hand-held gadgets unveils an Internet TV system that’s designed as a beachhead for the tech giant’s broader ambitions to deliver a wide range of information, games, music and video to the home.

USA After a five-day stint in jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis will return to work as soon as today to face another day of reckoning.

SINGAPORE Air pollution in Singapore reached its highest level in a year yesterday as smog from Indonesian forest fires shrouded the island nation in a veil of gray, irking tourists and alarming authorities with hours left before general elections.