World briefs

ITALY Law enforcement has broken up a Chinese organized crime ring that used money from criminal activities to force its way into European trucking companies and control the movement of Chinese-made goods in much of Europe.

PHILIPPINES President Rodrigo Duterte threatened yesterday to impose a total ban on sending workers to Kuwait because of sexual abuses that have forced some Filipino women to kill themselves.

KOREA Public surveys show most South Koreans support the North’s participation in the Olympics, a chance to create a tentative thaw in the Koreas’ long-strained relations. But a poll released yesterday suggests that half of South Koreans oppose a joint flag.

KAZAKHSTAN A bus fire in Kazakhstan killed 52 people yesterday in a vast snow-covered steppe, officials said. Authorities said that only five people on the bus managed to escape the blaze and are now being treated for injuries.

SYRIA said yesterday its air defense would shoot down any Turkish jets that carry out attacks within Syria, a stark warning as tensions soar over apparent preparations by the Turkish military to invade a northern Syrian Kurdish enclave.

UKRAINE’s parliament yesterday passed a bill to reintegrate the country’s eastern territories that are currently controlled by Russia-backed separatists, even supporting taking them back by military force if necessary.

SERBIA’s prime minister, government officials and hundreds of others attended the funeral yesterday of a moderate Serb politician who was gunned down in Kosovo this week in an attack that has fueled concerns for Balkan stability.

COLOMBIA Two ex-combatants with Colombia’s once-largest rebel group have been shot to death while participating in a campaign event for the guerrilla’s new political party.

US-MEXICO U.S. President Donald Trump insisted yesterday his views on a border wall with Mexico have not evolved, pushing back against his own chief of staff’s comments to lawmakers. Trump said on Twitter: “The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it.”