World briefs

CHINA An airfield in southern China from which the famed Flying Tigers took off to fight Japanese warplanes is being converted to battle a new enemy: drought. Aircraft equipped for cloud seeding operations began using World War II-era Zhijiang Airport in Hunan province last month as part of a trial operation, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said Monday. China has experimented heavily with cloud seeding to combat declining rainfall across large parts of the country, using both planes and ground artillery.

AFGHANISTAN Authorities in Afghanistan say two Afghan civilians have been killed and three injured in a roadside bomb blast in the country’s capital, Kabul.

PHILIPPINES Dozens of activists burn a mock U.S. flag as they protest at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, demanding that Washington hand over to the Philippines a U.S. Marine suspected in the killing of a transgender Filipino that the demonstrators labeled a hate crime. Jeffrey Laude, 26, was found dead, apparently strangled and drowned, beside a toilet bowl in a motel room in Olongapo city, northwest of Manila, shortly after he checked in late Saturday, allegedly with a Marine.

AUSTRALIA-RUSSIA A Russian diplomat dismisses the Australian prime minister’s threat of a physical confrontation with the Russian president as immature, warning that Vladimir Putin is a judo expert. Prime Minister Tony Abbott intends to have a one-on-one meeting with Putin on the sidelines of a summit of the world’s 20 biggest economies in Brisbane next month to demand Russian cooperation with a Dutch-led investigation into the shooting down of a Malaysia airliner in Ukraine by Russian-backed separatists with the loss of 298 lives in July.

SOUTH AFRICA The prosecution is saying Oscar Pistorius is being portrayed as a “poor victim” ahead of his sentencing after he was found guilty of culpable homicide last month.
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SPAIN The leader of Spain’s wealthy Catalonia region yesterday called off an independence vote but said an unofficial poll will take place next month to gauge secessionist sentiment. Artur Mas was forced to cancel the Nov. 9 referendum and replace it with a symbolic one on the same day after Spain’s government challenged the referendum in the country’s Constitutional Court, which suspended the vote while it deliberates.

UK A man suspected of plotting a terrorist gun or bomb attack in Britain had former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s address in his car, a prosecutor said yesterday during opening arguments in a trial held under contentious conditions of secrecy. Erol Incedal, a 26-year-old Londoner, is accused of preparing a terrorist act and possessing bomb-making instructions. He denies the charges.

UK-ISRAEL The British parliament’s vote to recognize a Palestinian state should concern Israel, Britain’s ambassador to the Jewish state suggested yesterday, saying it reflected shifting public sentiment in Britain and around the world following the summer war in Gaza. The vote will not change London’s policy, British officials have said. But Ambassador Matthew Gould said it was “significant” because it reveals negative attitudes toward Israel following its 50-day war with the Islamic militant group Hamas.