World briefs

BELGIUM A knife-wielding man stabbed two police officers in Brussels in an attack that may be terror-related, Belgian prosecutors said. It was the latest attack on law enforcement officials in a nation that has been on high alert since 32 people were killed March 22 in suicide bombing attacks.

THAILAND-US About a dozen people are arrested in cities across the U.S. for running what authorities call a sophisticated sex trafficking operation in which hundreds of women were brought from Thailand to America under fraudulent visas and forced to work as prostitutes to pay bondage debts. More on p12

AFGHANISTAN President Ashraf Ghani appeals for sustained international help for his insurgency-wracked country, promising international donors that the government would concentrate its future efforts on tackling rampant poverty. “We are facing social collapse,” Ghani says.
United Nations The United Nations’ highest court rules that it does not have jurisdiction to take on cases brought by the tiny South Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands that sought to urge Britain, India and Pakistan to resume negotiations to eradicate the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.

JAPAN Authorities investigate the poisoning deaths of two elderly patients at a Yokohama hospital specializing in terminal-stage care.

BANGLADESH A court in Bangladesh clears a Canadian university student of all allegations related to a restaurant siege three months ago in which 20 hostages were killed.  More on p12

CAMBODIA Acting opposition leader briefly leaves the party headquarters where he took refuge from arrest four months ago and is able to register to vote in next year’s elections without incident.

CHINA The death toll from two landslides last week in southeastern China following a major typhoon rises to 16, with another 17 still considered missing, even though it’s been more than a week since strong rapids carrying rocks and debris swept through the village and destroyed 20 homes.

AUSTRALIA An Australian bank chief executive tells a parliamentary committee that traders implicated in market manipulation allegations had been suspended then reinstated without those accusations being judged by a court.

FRANCE The hackers who knocked a French television station offline last year are still regularly trying to break in to French government computers. The latest attack briefly interrupted 11 channels belonging to TV5 Monde and packed its social media sites with propaganda for the Islamic State group.

USA A federal government contractor has been accused of stealing highly classified information. The Justice Department announced a criminal complaint against Harold Thomas Martin III of Glen Burnie, Maryland. The Justice Department said in Boston that the arrest pointed to the threat posed by insiders.

MEXICO Four young men found slain on a roadside have been identified as members of Catholic evangelism group, authorities in western Mexico said. The Michoacan state prosecutor’s office said in a statement that family members identified the four men and said they were last seen last weekend, but had not been reported missing.