World briefs

ASEAN President Barack Obama puts the long-simmering dispute in the South China Sea front and center on the agenda at an ASEAN summit as it becomes clear that most of the other leaders gathered in the Laotian capital are going to let China off with a mild rebuke over its territorial expansion.

HONG KONG A van collided with a Dragonair plane that was carrying around 300 people at the Hong Kong International Airport yesterday. According to video footage of the incident, the van driver, who crashed into the plane as it was taxiing for takeoff, seems to have been at fault.

CHINA-SOUTH KOREA China is shunning a security dialogue in Seoul amid an ongoing row over South Korea’s decision to deploy a powerful U.S. missile defense system. Beijing has angrily denounced plans for its deployment due to fears that the system will allow the U.S. military to peer deep into northeastern China.

PHILIPPINES Seven Chinese citizens were arrested in a drug raid against a suspected laboratory inside a pig farm. President Rodrigo Duterte, who has launched a massive crackdown on illegal drugs, has said that Chinese citizens are involved in the drug trade in the Philippines.

RUSSIA’s Foreign Ministry announced yesterday that the Israeli and the Palestinian leaders have agreed “in principle” to meet in Moscow for talks in what the Russians hope will relaunch the Mideast peace process after more than a two-year break.

MALDIVES Police in the Maldives have raided the office of one of the country’s leading news websites shortly after the broadcast of a television documentary that accused the country’s president of corruption, money laundering and misrule.

AFGHANISTAN The Taliban pushed into the capital of Afghanistan’s southern Uruzgan province yesterday, triggering fierce clashes and sending all government officials fleeing from the city, an Afghan official said. Hundreds of Taliban are believed to be involved in the assault.

SYRIAN government forces and their allies captured new ground on the edge of the contested northern city of Aleppo yesterday, tightening the siege on rebel-held parts of the city, state media and an activist group said.

FRANCE President Francois Hollande is hinting that he could seek a second term in elections next year, even though he is the least popular French leader in modern times.