World Briefs

CHINA’s State Oceanic Administration said four officers were killed when a marine surveillance plane crashed into a mountain along the country’s east coast. The accident occurred on Tuesday during a routine mission to monitor conditions in Zhejiang province.

THAILAND has become the first country in Asia to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis, the World Health Organization announced on Tuesday, but experts warn many other problems still exist — including a rising rate of new HIV infections among gay men and transgender people.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA Police fired gunshots to quell a student protest demanding the prime minister’s resignation, the government said. Students in the South Pacific nation have been demanding for weeks that Prime Minister Peter O’Neill resign because of alleged corruption and mismanagement.

INDIA Prime Minister Narendra Modi was able to burnish his standing as a trusted U.S. partner yesterday, addressing a joint meeting of Congress after years of being shunned in Washington over religious violence in his home state.

AFGHANISTAN Taliban gunmen have killed 12 people they captured in recent ambushes, including policemen and soldiers, in the country’s restive southeastern Ghazni province, an official says.

EGYPT-UZBEKISTAN An EgyptAir plane that made an emergency landing yesterday in Uzbekistan following a bomb threat has resumed its flight to Beijing, Egyptian officials said, the latest in a series of deadly or damaging air travel incidents involving Egypt. The officials said that no bomb was found after the Airbus A330-220 and its passengers were searched by explosives experts.

SOUTH AFRICA People living on communal land owned by a community trust in South Africa’s eastern KwaZulu-Natal province are set to be given title deeds to their property, a move that could give millions of poor South Africans collateral to raise loans.

PORTUGAL-ITALY A former CIA agent said yesterday that she will be extradited to Italy to serve a prison sentence for her part in the U.S. extraordinary renditions program after Portugal’s Constitutional Court rejected her final appeal. Sabrina de Sousa said she is waiting to be told when she will be taken to Italy, where she was convicted in absentia and has a four-year sentence to serve.