World briefs

CHINA State media say an official in southwest China has shot and wounded two city leaders before killing himself. The shooting happened yesterday morning in Panzhihua city in Sichuan province. The gunman shot Communist Party chief Zhang Yan and mayor Li Jianqin while they were meeting at a conference and exhibition center. Xinhua says the gunman was the city’s land and resources chief, Chen Zhongshu, who killed himself afterward. The report gave no possible motive.

CHINA Eleven children were injured by a man in a knife attack at a kindergarten in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The man slashed the children with a kitchen knife after entering the kindergarten. Police said the suspect claimed he was at the kindergarten to pick up his child. Three seriously injured children have been sent to a hospital in Nanning, the regional capital, for treatment. The suspect is in police custody.

US-N. KOREA Donald Trump says he is confident North Korea won’t develop a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the United States. But his options for stopping the reclusive communist country are slim.

INDONESIA said yesterday that it has suspended military cooperation with Australia over an alleged insult of Indonesian state ideology. Indonesian military spokesman Maj. Gen. Wuryanto said that cooperation has been suspended indefinitely, and that the decision was made after considering many matters.

PAKISTAN A police official says a roadside bomb has struck a vehicle carrying police in the country’s northwest, wounding four officers and 15 passers-by.

Local police official Mohammad Nawaz says yesterday’s attack took place in the city of Dera Ismail Khan, a gateway to Pakistan’s troubled tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

PHILIPPINES Southeast Asia’s worst-performing currency of 2016 is in for another tough year with President Rodrigo Duterte’s spending plans seen boosting imports just as rising U.S. interest rates spur capital outflows. The peso is forecast to be collateral damage as an economy growing faster than 7 percent and the government’s infrastructure program drive demand for inward shipments

THAILAND’s prime minister is vowing to crack down on the country’s private van transportation industry after a fiery crash that killed 25 people.

GAMBIA Relatives say Gambia’s election chief has fled the country because of threats made after he declared longtime ruler Yahya Jammeh had lost last month’s presidential election. Independent Electoral Commission chairman Alieu Momarr Njai has gone to Senegal, as the political standoff deepens between Jammeh and President-elect Adama Barrow.