World briefs

CHINA’s Defense Ministry angrily rejects accusations from Japan that the Chinese military is destabilizing the regional military balance by seeking to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas, accusing Japan of seeking to deceive the international community and sow discord between China and its neighbors.

DUBAI An Emirates flight from India with 300 people on board crash lands at Dubai’s main airport, sending black smoke billowing into the air and halting all traffic at the Middle East’s busiest airport. Authorities said all passengers were evacuated safely.

AUSTRALIA Human rights groups accuse Australia of deliberately ignoring the alleged abuse of asylum seekers being held at a remote Pacific island detention facility in a bid to deter future refugees from trying to reach the country by boat.

JAPAN A woman who has downplayed Japan’s wartime actions and is known to have far-right views is named defense minister in a Cabinet reshuffle, a move that could unsettle relations with Asian neighbors with bitter memories of World War II-era atrocities.

NEPAL’s parliament elected a former communist rebel leader to lead a coalition government as the country’s new prime minister, a move that will likely mean the continuation of political instability in the Himalayan nation.

PAKISTAN-INDIA Hundreds of Pakistanis rallied  in Islamabad against the imminent visit of India’s interior minister, Rajnath Singh, claiming the predominantly Muslim region of Kashmir, now divided between the two countries, belongs to Pakistan.

CAMBODIA A truck transporting Cambodian garment workers to their factory crashed yesterday, injuring 33 people, 12 of them critically, the government said.
The accident occurred in the western province of Kampong Speu. The truck crashed when the driver tried to evade another truck that had driven across the road.

FRENCH President Francois Hollande has strongly criticized U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying some of the things the Republican does make him sick. “Some excesses make your stomach turn, even in the United States, especially when — as did Donald Trump — he speaks ill of a soldier, of the memory of a soldier,” Hollande said yesterday.

GERMANY Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler’s day planner reinforces historians’ views of how mass murder was institutionalized and routine in Adolf Hitler’s Germany. Bild newspaper this week has been publishing excerpts from the calendar, which was found in a Russian archive in 2013 and is being prepared for publication next year.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro named new ministers in a Tuesday night shakeup of his cabinet, replacing a pro-market reformer on his economic team and appointing a military general indicted by the U.S. for drug trafficking to head the Interior Ministry.

Burundi’s government has rejected the proposed deployment of up to 228 United Nations police to the East African nation to monitor human rights abuses and calm more than a year of violence. The announcement follows a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing such a force amid reports of serious rights abuses, including against the opposition.