World Briefs

FIJI A 10-month old baby is among those missing and presumed dead in the cyclone after the boy’s parents told a local television station they lost hold of him amid ferocious winds and floodwaters that rose to their necks. The death toll from Cyclone Winston rose to 42.

CAMBODIA Meet the Hero Rats: intelligent, surprisingly adorable creatures with some of the most sensitive noses in the animal kingdom. They’ve successfully cleared minefields in Mozambique and Angola, and this month began doing the same in Cambodia.

INDIA Amnesty International has criticized Indian authorities for contributing to a climate of growing intolerance for dissent by carrying out or supporting a series of arbitrary arrests, caste-based discrimination, extrajudicial executions and attacks on freedom of expression.

JAPAN Honda’s president is sticking to its stance that the Japanese automaker plans no independent financial bailout for supplier Takata, which is embroiled in a massive recall crisis over air-bag inflators that may explode.

JAPAN A controversial plan to move a U.S. Marine Corps base within Okinawa in southern Japan has been pushed back by two years, America’s top military official in the Pacific said.

SINGAPORE’s economy expanded moderately last year, amid concerns of a global slowdown and weak manufacturing data, official figures showed.

AUSTRALIA  An Australian high school has created a national furor by allowing students to wear boy or girl uniforms regardless of gender.

USA Donald Trump decisively won Nevada’s Republican caucuses as his main rivals, Rubio and Cruz, battled for second place in an increasingly urgent effort to slam the brakes on the Trump juggernaut.

USA The Obama administration has deported about 4 percent of the tens of thousands of unaccompanied child immigrants who have been caught crossing the border illegally in the last several years, a Homeland Security Department official told lawmakers yesterday.

EUROPE In flashpoints near borders on either side of Europe, authorities try to force back migrants desperate to begin new lives in more prosperous countries. In Greece, 1,250 Afghans are bused back to Athens after countries further up the migrant trail won’t let them through.

SPAIN’s Socialist party signed an agreement yesterday with liberal newcomer party Ciudadanos to support the Socialists’ bid to form a government next week, but they are still way short of a majority.