World briefs

CHINA Three knife-wielding assailants attacked staff at a Communist Party office in China’s far western region of Xinjiang and set off an explosive device, killing two and injuring three others, in the first such publicly reported fatal attack in months in the region.

US Debbie Reynolds, who lit up the screen in “Singin’ in the Rain’ and other Hollywood classics despite a tumultuous life, has died a day after losing her daughter, Carrie Fisher. Reynolds was 84. Her son, Todd Fisher, said Reynolds died Wednesday. “She’s now with Carrie and we’re all heartbroken,” Fisher said.

JAPAN’s Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, just back from Pearl Harbor, visited a Tokyo shrine that honors Japan’s war dead, including convicted war criminals. The visit drew rebukes from neighboring South Korea and China. 

PHILIPPINES At least 32 people were wounded when two bombs exploded while they were watching a boxing competition in a central Philippine town as part of an annual Roman Catholic holiday festival.

SOUTH KOREAN investigators summoned the country’s ambassador to France as they widened their inquiry into a corruption scandal to include allegations the impeached president’s administration blacklisted thousands of artists for their political beliefs.

THAILAND’s military-appointed parliament has granted the king absolute power in naming a supreme patriarch, the top ecclesiastical position of Thai Buddhism.

RUSSIA’s foreign ministry says a mortar round has exploded inside the Russian embassy compound in the Syrian capital Damascus. The mortar fired from a rebel-controlled suburb of Damascus fell near the entrance of the embassy’s consulate department. The ministry reported “insignificant material damage” and no injuries.

UKRAINE Separatist rebels say the Ukrainian government has released 15 people who had been held in custody. The separatist mouthpiece Donetsk News Agency said yesterday that government representatives handed over eight men and seven women, some of them in poor health, to rebel commanders at a checkpoint near rebel stronghold Donetsk. The separatists this week released to the government two women they had held for months.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Thick seasonal fog delayed flights and caused car crashes. The UAE’s National Center of Meteorology & Seismology said yesterday that visibility dropped below 50 meters in some areas. Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel and home to long-haul carrier Emirates, saw flight delays. Delays also hit Abu Dhabi and Sharjah’s international airports.