World briefs

CHINA-PHILIPPINES This week’s visit to China by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte points toward a restoration of trust between the sides following recent tensions over their South China Sea territorial dispute, Chinese official news agency says.

CHINA Entertainment giant Wanda is offering producers a rebate of 40 percent to promote its upcoming USD8b movie studio in eastern China in an ambitious bid to establish the complex as a major production base in Asia.

THAILAND People waited patiently in long queues outside government banks to secure special commemorative 100 baht currency notes in honor of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

BANGLADESH Three Bangladeshi men have been identified as the financiers of the July 1 attack in which a group of assailants tortured and killed 20 hostages at a restaurant in Dhaka, a counterterrorism official says.

NEW ZEALAND A U.S. Navy warship will visit New Zealand next month for the first time since the 1980s, ending a 30-year-old military stalemate between the countries that was triggered when New Zealand banned nuclear warships.

AUSTRALIA Canberra has become increasingly secretive through a range of new laws, including a gag on officials speaking out about conditions at an Australia-run immigration camp in Nauru, a United Nations human rights investigator says.

SINGAPORE A self-driving car with two engineers on board was switching lanes in Singapore when it hit a truck, authorities say.

MIDDLE EAST Iran supports the Iraqi gov’t in its fight against terrorism amid an offensive to drive out the Islamic State group from the northern city of Mosul. Iran is a close ally of the Shiite-led government in Baghdad and has sent Revolutionary Guard advisers to Iraq to help organize Shiite militias.

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel will host a meeting with the Russian, Ukrainian and French presidents today to discuss efforts toward peace in eastern Ukraine — their first summit in a year, her office said. Merkel invited Putin, Poroshenko and Hollande to “assess the implementation of the Minsk (peace) agreements since the last meeting and discuss further steps.”

NIGERIA’s gov’t is negotiating the release of another 83 of the Chibok schoolgirls taken in a mass abduction two-and-a-half years ago, but more than 100 others appear unwilling to leave their Boko Haram Islamic extremist captors, a community leader said yesterday.