World briefs

CHINESE President Xi Jinping called for closer cooperation among countries across Asia and Europe in areas from anti-terrorism to finance, as officials from dozens of governments met to promote a Beijing-led initiative to expand trade links across the region. 

NORTH KOREA test-launched a ballistic missile that flew for half an hour and reached an unusually high altitude before landing in the Sea of Japan. The launch, which Tokyo said could be of a new type of missile, is a direct challenge to the new South Korean president. 

NEW ZEALAND The small nation at the bottom of the South Pacific saw its population surge by 100,300 people in the year to March 31, the biggest nominal increase since European colonization began in the 1840s, according to Statistics New Zealand.

GREECE An Intercity train derailed and crashed into a house in northern Greece, leaving three people dead and 10 injured. There was no immediate reason given for the derailment. An investigation has begun.

ROMANIA A tourist thrown into the Thames when an extremist plowed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge in London was finally buried Saturday in this Black Sea port that was her hometown.

GERMANY Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party decisively won an election in Germany’s most populous state, according to projections, handing her Social Democratic opponents a humiliating defeat and further boosting her momentum as she seeks a fourth term in September.

SYRIA Hundreds of rebels and their families began leaving a northeastern neighborhood of Damascus and heading toward rebel-held areas in northern Syria yesterday, in another step that would eventually bring all parts of the capital under the control of President Bashar Assad’s forces.