World briefs

PHILIPPINES-CHINA The Philippine president said that the international arbitration Manila has initiated to challenge China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and a legally binding “Code of Conduct” are the only ways to settle the long-raging disputes peacefully.

VIETNAM-USA The State Department welcomed Tuesday the release of one of Vietnam’s most prominent dissidents, as the U.S. urges the authoritarian government in Hanoi to improve its human rights record and smooth the way for stronger relations. State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf said Nguyen Van Hai, also known as Dieu Cay, was due to arrive in the U.S. on Tuesday. He had been serving a 12-year prison term for conducting “propaganda against the state” in relation to his blogging and citizen media activities.

MALAYSIA A second ship was preparing to join the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in a remote patch of the Indian Ocean, as Malaysia’s defense minister expressed confidence the plane will be found.

PHILIPPINES A U.S. Marine suspected in the gruesome killing of a transgender Filipino was flown from his warship to the Philippine military’s main camp, where he will continue to be guarded by fellow Marines, in a compromise that eased a looming irritant over his custody. More on p12

THAILAND Two Myanmar migrant workers have retracted their confessions to killing two British travelers on a southern Thai resort island and now claim to have neither raped the female victim nor slain the pair, the men’s lawyers said.

RUSSIA The driver of the snowplow that apparently caused the plane carrying the Total CEO to crash at a Moscow airport says he neither saw nor heard the private jet as it sped toward him down the runway in the dark. The Dassault Falcon 50 clipped the snowplow on takeoff late Monday and crashed, bursting into flames and killing Total SA Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie and the three French crew members on board.

USA Three teenage girls from Colorado flew to Europe in a possible bid to join Islamic State militants in Syria, and now authorities are looking at their friends to see if any have similar intentions. A U.S. official said the evidence gathered so far made it clear that the girls — two sisters, ages 17 and 15, and their 16-year-old friend — were headed to Syria, though the official said investigators were still trying to determine what sort of contacts they had in that country.

UK The father of a British photojournalist held by the Islamic State group has died just weeks after he appealed from his hospital bed for the militants to release his son. Paul Cantlie was recovering from throat surgery when he recorded a video he hoped would be seen by those holding his son, John, who he called an impartial journalist who wanted to tell the world about Syria.

BELGIUM The European Union legislature has approved the appointment of former Luxembourg leader Jean-Claude Juncker as the new EU Commission president molding policies of the 28-nation bloc for the next five years.

CANADA A gunman shot a Canadian soldier standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa yesterday, then entered Parliament and shots rang out, police and witnesses said. People fled Parliament by scrambling down scaffolding erected for renovations, witnesses told the Canadian Press news agency. Others were in lockdown.