World briefs

US Gunfire erupted inside a crowded nightclub early yesterday, killing one person and wounding more than a dozen others. There was no indication the shooting at the Cameo club was terrorism related, police said. Authorities also didn’t immediately have any suspects in the 1:30 a.m. shooting on a busy weekend night.

PHILIPPINES At least four people were killed and 23 others wounded in a grenade attack in the southern Philippines that appears to be unrelated to terrorism, officials said yesterday. 

SINGAPORE Amos Yee, 18, a blogger from Singapore who was jailed for his online posts blasting his government, was granted asylum to remain in the United States, an immigration judge ruled.

BANGLADESH Two suspected militants were killed yesterday in an ongoing military raid on a building where armed militants were holed up in eastern Bangladesh, police and army officials said. Six people, including two policemen, were killed in explosions near that building a day earlier.

RUSSIA Thousands of people crowded into Moscow’s Pushkin Square yesterday for an unsanctioned protest against the Russian government, the biggest gathering in a wave of nationwide protests that were the most extensive show of defiance in years.

IRAN said yesterday it has imposed sanctions on 15 American companies over their alleged support for Israel, terrorism and repression in the region.

ARAB SUMMIT Arab leaders are expected to reaffirm a Saudi-led peace plan that offers Israel full relations with dozens of Arab and Muslim states in exchange for its withdrawal from lands captured in 1967, at a summit this week. Known as the Arab Peace Initiative, the plan was first proposed in 2002.

BELARUS Police in Belarus’ capital have arrested demonstrators who were demanding to know the whereabouts of friends and relatives detained in the breakup of a mass protest. The human rights organization Vesna said about 30 people were arrested yesterday. They were among about 100 people who tried to assemble on Minsk’s central square.

GERMANY Exit polls indicate that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party has emerged easily as the strongest party from an election in Germany’s western Saarland state.