World Briefs

AFGHANISTAN’s spy agency says it has freed eight people who were among a large group of ethnic minority Hazaras kidnapped earlier this year.

THAILAND Police announce the arrest of a man they said tricked more than 100 men into working for low pay on illegal fishing boats in Indonesia, part of the government’s effort to show that it is cracking down on an industry that has been rife with human trafficking and labor abuses.

SLOVENIA, once a staunch critic of fences between EU countries, said yesterday it will start building a barrier on the border with Croatia to stem the influx of migrants but not stop it entirely. Prime Minister Miro Cerar said yesterday “at this moment, about 30,000 immigrants are on their way toward Slovenia” and that “a big number” of them could be stranded in the small Alpine state if neighboring Austria restricts their flow to an average of 6,000 a day.

FRANCE Riot police and migrants camped near the French port of Calais have clashed in overnight violence that aid workers said reflects the growing frustration of refugees’ inability to smuggle themselves aboard trucks and trains bound for England. Calais police said officers monitoring the 6,000-resident shantytown east of the port city were pelted with rocks after midnight Monday and again yesterday as migrants repeatedly tried to block a neighboring highway that leads to the main ferry terminal. They said 27 officers have suffered minor injuries, including 11 early yesterday.

GERMANY A union representing German flight attendants has called on its members to walk out on all Lufthansa flights from today. The announcement yesterday marks an escalation between the UFO union and the airline in a dispute over transition payments. The airline confirmed that all of its flights from Germany would be affected from 4 a.m. (0300 GMT) today until midnight Friday.

EGYPT A human rights advocate says Egyptian authorities have released a leading investigative journalist and human rights advocate who had been detained under accusations of spreading “false news.” Heba Morayef, associate director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, announced on social media yesterday the release of Hossam Bahgat, who was detained Sunday after being summoned to an intelligence building in Cairo.

JORDAN  The Jordanian government spokesman says a shooting spree at a police training center that killed five people, including two American instructors, took place in a canteen in the compound. Monday’s shooting also killed a South African and two Jordanians who were identified as translators by a news website close to the security forces. One of the Jordanians was to be buried yesterday. The assailant, a Jordanian police captain, was killed. The attack also wounded six people, including two Americans.

USA President Barack Obama’s plan to protect from deportation an estimated 5 million people living in the United States illegally suffered another setback yesterday in a ruling from a New Orleans-based federal appeals court. In a 2-1 ruling, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Texas-based federal judge’s injunction blocking the administration’s immigration initiative. Republicans had criticized the plan as an illegal executive overreach when Obama announced it last November. Twenty-six states challenged the plan in court.

USA Researchers are reporting encouraging results for a new generation of pacemakers — miniature, wireless ones that can be implanted through a leg vein without surgery. In a study of 725 patients, one of these devices, made by Medtronic, was successfully implanted 99 percent of the time, with a low rate of complications compared to traditional pacemakers.