World Briefs

CHINA A former vice minister of public security goes on trial in northern China for alleged bribery, the latest senior figure linked to the country’s former security czar to be prosecuted in an anti-corruption campaign.

CHINA Inflation eased in September, giving Beijing more room to stimulate slowing economic growth if needed. Consumer prices rose 1.6 percent over a year earlier, driven by a 2.7 percent rise in food costs, data showed.
VIETNAM slams China over its construction of two lighthouses in the disputed South China Sea, saying the move violates Vietnam’s sovereignty and escalates tensions.

AFGHANISTAN Within hours of seizing the northern Afghan city of Kunduz last month, Taliban fighters went door-to-door, hunting down not only those accused of working with security forces, but women’s rights advocates and journalists. The Taliban’s brief foray into the city offered a chilling reminder of its violent Islamic rule in the late 1990s, and of what could await the country if it returns to power.

PAKISTAN A bomb targeting the office of a ruling party lawmaker kills seven people and wounds nine others in central Pakistan.

PHILIPPINES Suspected Muslim militants post a video purportedly showing for the first time two Canadians, a Norwegian and a Filipino who were abducted from a southern Philippine resort last month, and demanded that government forces stop their artillery attacks.

INDIA Dozens of writers have returned India’s highest literary honor to protest what they call a growing climate of intolerance in the country since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government took office.

MALDIVES The president of the Maldives fires his defense minister, a move believed to be linked to an explosion on the leader’s speedboat last month that officials suspect was an assassination attempt.

SRI LANKA Relatives and civil rights activists demand that the Sri Lankan government release hundreds of ethnic Tamils detained without charges for years on suspicion of links to the now-defeated Tamil Tiger rebels.

IRAN has sent hundreds of troops into northern and central Syria in the first such open deployment in the country’s civil war, joining fighters from its Lebanese ally Hezbollah in an offensive against rebels and taking advantage of cover from Russia’s air campaign, a regional official and Syrian activists said yesterday.

JAPAN Toyota, under ambitious environmental targets, is aiming to sell hardly any regular gasoline vehicles by 2050, only hybrids and fuel cells, to radically reduce emissions.

SINGAPORE’s economy expanded slightly in the third quarter, narrowly avoiding recession after shrinking in the previous three months, preliminary figures show.

NEW ZEALAND’s government posts a budget surplus for the first time since 2008, fulfilling a financial target it set itself after borrowing billions of dollars to pay for the fallout from the global financial crisis and a devastating earthquake.