World briefs

MADAGASCAR As plague cases rise in Madagascar’s capital, many city dwellers are panicking. They waited in long lines for antibiotics at pharmacies and reached through bus windows to buy masks from street vendors. Schools have been canceled, and public gatherings are banned. The plague outbreak has killed 63 people in the Indian Ocean island nation, Madagascar’s government says.

VIETNAM Some villages in Vietnam are still isolated by landslides and destroyed bridges after a tropical depression last week that has become one of the country’s worst natural disasters in years. The Vietnam Disaster Management Authority said in a statement yesterday the death toll has risen to 72 with 30 people still missing.

PHILIPPINES The last two surviving leaders of a deadly siege in the southern Philippines, including a top Asian terror suspect, were killed yesterday in a push by thousands of troops to retake the last pocket of Marawi city still held by pro-Islamic State militants, top security officials said.

IRAQ Kurdish forces were withdrawing from Kirkuk yesterday as Iraqi federal forces moved in to the disputed city and seized oil fields and other infrastructure amid soaring tensions over last month’s Kurdish vote for independence.

SPAIN A Monday morning deadline came and went without the president of the Catalonia region clarifying whether he had declared independence from Spain, and the Spanish government says he now has until Thursday to backtrack on any steps the region has taken toward secession.

ANTARCTICA Almost the entire cohort of chicks from an Adelie penguin colony in the eastern Antarctic was wiped out by starvation last summer in what scientists say is only the second such incident in over 40 years.

VENEZUELA Pro-government candidates have swept to an unforeseen victory in Venezuelan gubernatorial races according to official results that have quickly been challenged by the country’s opposition.