World briefs

JAPAN Okinawa’s governor says he is preparing to revoke approval for work needed to relocate a U.S. air base from one area of the southern Japanese island to another. Local residents are upset at having to live with U.S. Marine Air Station Futenma, and there are plans to move it to a less developed area on Okinawa.

JAPAN Mount Aso, a volcano on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, has erupted, sending huge plumes of black and then white smoke 2,000 meters into the air. More on p12

INDIA At least 18 laborers were killed when their overloaded truck overturned in southern India early Monday, police said. Another 17 people were injured in the accident near Gundepalli, a village in Andhra Pradesh state, police officer Ravi Prakash said.

SINGAPORE  Billowing smoke from Indonesian forest fires has worsened Singapore’s air pollution, raising concern among organizers of this weekend’s widely anticipated Formula One night race, as well as in schools that reopened yesterday after a weeklong term break. Large parts of neighboring Malaysia were also shrouded in the gray, acrid pall.

THAILAND’s military government has detained a reporter for an English-language newspaper, in what appears to be part of a fresh crackdown on critics of the ruling junta.

AFGHANISTAN An Afghan official says that more than 350 inmates have escaped after an attack by the Taliban insurgents on the main prison in eastern Ghazni province. Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, deputy provincial governor of Ghazni, said that insurgents wearing military uniforms launched a well-organized attack to free the inmates. More on p13

PAKISTAN A police official says a blast outside of a bus terminal in central Pakistan has killed at least nine people and wounded 48.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE Israeli police briefly clash with Palestinian protesters at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, raising tensions in the holy city ahead of the Jewish New Year.

USA An explosive wildfire burned largely unchecked yesterday after incinerating homes, apartment blocks and hundreds of other buildings as it raced through rural communities in Northern California’s Lake County, leaving at least one person dead and sending thousands fleeing down flame-lined streets. A second massive wildfire, less than 320 kilometers away is blamed for destroying 135 homes as it spread through the Sierra Nevada. That fire was 30 percent contained.

SAUDI ARABIA Saudi King Salman and the imam of the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca visit people injured by the deadly collapse of a giant construction crane last week.

UK British Prime Minister David Cameron urged the international community on Monday to send more aid to Syrian refugees in host countries in the Middle East, as a way of stemming mass migration to Europe. Cameron made the comments during a tour of Jordan’s sprawling Zaatari refugee camp, which is home to more than 80,000 Syrians.