World briefs

MYANMAR An aid agency projects 48,000 babies will be born this year in the refugee camps for Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh after military operations against them in Myanmar. 

PHILIPPINES Eight people were killed in the southern Philippines when a rusty mortar round they thought was an iron canister with gold inside exploded as they tried to pry it open with a hammer.

INDONESIA A rare Sumatran tiger killed a woman working at a palm oil plantation in western Indonesia, the latest human-tiger conflict in an area hit by widespread deforestation.

INDIA Police said four officers were killed Saturday when rebels fighting against Indian rule in disputed Kashmir detonated a bomb on a street the officers were patrolling. 

PAKISTAN An Afghan official abducted in Pakistan last October has been freed by his captors and returned home. No one has claimed the kidnapping, and it’s unclear who abducted him.

IRAN’s Revolutionary Guard said yesterday that the nation and its security forces have ended the wave of unrest linked to anti-government protests that erupted last month.

SYRIA Government forces and allied militiamen are advancing on the largest remaining rebel-held territory in the country’s north, forcing thousands of civilians to flee toward the border with Turkey in freezing winter temperatures.

EGYPT A hot air balloon carrying foreign tourists over Egypt’s ancient city of Luxor crash-landed Friday, killing a tourist from South Africa and injuring at least 12 others, officials said.

GERMANY Chancellor Angela Merkel embarked yesterday on talks with the center-left Social Democrats on forming a new government, with leaders stressing the need for speed as they attempt to break an impasse more than three months after the country’s election.

SPAIN Emergency response units of the Spanish army say they have been deployed to rescue drivers trapped in their cars by heavy snows falling across large parts of Spain.

VENEZUELA The new leader of Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly pushed lawmakers toward reaching a negotiated solution with the government Friday, a strategy that has sowed divisions among President Nicolas Maduro’s detractors.

MEXICO Five decapitated human heads have been found on the hood of a taxi in the drug violence-plagued Mexican state of Veracruz.