World Briefs

Philippines Four people, including a six-year-old girl, were killed in a roadside bombing in the southern Philippines by suspected Muslim insurgents who wanted to attack military reinforcements, police said yesterday. The victims were in a van in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town in Maguindanao province Tuesday night when the improvised bomb went off.

AUSTRALIA  A Virgin Australia flight from Sydney to Los Angeles was diverted after the airline received a bomb threat that turned out to be a hoax, the airline said. The plane was forced to land in the eastern city of Brisbane yesterday after the threat was called in. Police searched the plane and determined there was no danger. The plane resumed its flight to LA.

AUSTRALIA The prime minister warned that resettling asylum seekers in New Zealand instead of deporting them to the Pacific atoll of Nauru could encourage more asylum seekers to try to reach Australian shores by boat. The plight of 267 asylum seekers facing deportation from Australia to Nauru will be discussed when Malcolm Turnbull meets his New Zealand counterpart John Key for annual talks in Sydney tomorrow.

CUBA-USA The United States and Cuba sign a deal restoring commercial air traffic for the first time in five decades, allowing dozens of new daily flights to bring hundreds of thousands more American travelers a year to the island as early as this fall. More on p15

USA  Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Marco Rubio are locked in a high-stakes political chess match in South Carolina, strategically moving money and other campaign resources around in a bid to pull ahead in the Republican primary race — or at least keep their campaigns afloat if they don’t.

MEXICO Pope Francis wraps up his trip to Mexico today with some of his most anticipated events: a visit in a Juarez prison just days after a deadly riot in another lockup and a stop at the Texas border when immigration is a hot issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.

ZIKA  The World Health Organization says it may be necessary to use controversial methods like genetically modified mosquitoes to wipe out the insects that are spreading the Zika virus across the Americas.

GREECE Hundreds of trucks and cars were stranded at two Greek-Bulgarian border crossings yesterday, after a blockade by Greek farmers was met with a retaliatory blockade by angry truck drivers on the Bulgarian side.