World Briefs

CHINA Communist leaders allow China’s biggest corporate bond default yet in a fresh sign of wrenching economic change as growth slows and Beijing gives market forces a bigger role in its financial system.

AFGHANISTAN Protests calling for better security in Afghanistan break out in several cities a day after a crowd estimated at 10,000 descended on the presidential palace in Kabul in response to the brutal killings of seven people from the minority Hazara ethnic group.

INDIA-UK Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Britain for a visit that will see him address Parliament, lunch with Queen Elizabeth II and sign billions in business deals with India’s former colonial ruler, now an eager economic suitor.

AUSTRALIA Apple faces accusations of racism in Australia after a group of black teenagers was asked to leave a store in Melbourne when a staffer expressed concern they would shoplift.

AUSTRALIA Seven men blamed for a riot that caused 10 million Australian dollars (USD7 million) damage to a remote Australian immigration detention camp have been flown to a mainland prison.

THAILAND Fourteen orangutans that were smuggled out of Indonesia and believed to have been put to work at tourist attractions in Thailand are sent home.

PORTUGAL Socialist leader Antonio Costa says he is available to take power immediately following the center-right government’s collapse and promises to comply with the fiscal discipline required of countries like Portugal that use Europe’s shared euro currency.

SPAIN The leader of a Catalan secessionist alliance promising to break away from Spain by mid-2017 failed again yesterday to get the backing of regional lawmakers for his re-election as president, posing a setback for the economically powerful region’s independence drive.

S KOREA’s top court upholds a life sentence for the captain of a ferry that sank last year, killing more than 300 people, most of them teenagers on a school trip. More on p12

VENEZUELA Two nephews of Venezuela’s powerful first lady are facing arraignment in New York after being arrested in Haiti on charges of conspiring to smuggle 800 kilograms of cocaine into the U.S., people familiar with the case said. The arrest of Efrain Campos and Francisco Flores is likely to exacerbate already tense relations between the U.S. and Venezuela.

BURUNDI International leaders urgently called yesterday for a meeting of Burundi’s government and opposition as fears continued that the African nation is at risk of a Rwanda-like genocide. The joint statement by the UN, EU and African Union came as the U.N. Security Council was set to vote on a resolution condemning increasing killings, torture and human rights violations in Burundi and threatening sanctions against those contributing to the violence.