World briefs

CHINA Liaoning Province has started to use drones with remote sensing systems to battle air pollution, a local environment watchdog said yesterday. Since bad traffic and snowstorms disturb air quality checks, Liaoning will use drones to detect polluters and control smog. The drones provide real-time inspection of the source of pollutants, said Wu Di, deputy director of the Liaoyang environmental inspection bureau.

VIETNAM A Vietnamese maritime official says authorities are searching for eight sailors who went missing after their cargo ship collided with another vessel off the country’s southern coast.

NORTH KOREA The U.N. agency that has provided food aid to North Korea for nearly two decades says it has enough donations to stay open for the rest of this year but is uncertain whether it will be able to operate there beyond next March.

IRAN The Obama administration is facing its last best chance to curb Iran’s nuclear program —
not just to meet an end-of-the-month deadline to secure a deal, but get one done before skeptical Republicans who will control Congress next year are able to scuttle it. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and European Union adviser Catherine Ashton are trying to work toward an agreement in talks in Oman.

LIBYA The Islamic State group has established an outpost in the Libyan city of Darna, about 1,000 miles from the nearest territory controlled by the extremists who are trying to set up a “caliphate” in the region. Activists and others in the city tell The Associated Press that religious courts have ordered public killings and floggings, as well as segregating male and female students in what could be a model for the group as it seeks to expand its control.

NIGERIA A suicide bomber disguised in school uniform detonated explosives at a high school assembly in the northeast Nigerian city of Potiskum yesterday, killing at least 48 students, according to survivors and a morgue attendant.

EGYPT Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a jihadi organization based in the Sinai Peninsula that has carried out several attacks targeting Egyptian security forces, has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. The announcement reflects the growing regional appeal of the Islamic State, an al-Qaida breakaway group that has carved out a self-styled caliphate in Syria and Iraq and demanded the loyalty of the world’s Muslims.

SOUTH AFRICA Prosecutors said yesterday their application to appeal against Oscar Pistorius’ manslaughter conviction and five-year prison sentence will be heard in a South African court on Dec. 9.

SPAIN About 1.6 million people in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia voted Sunday in favor of breaking away from the country and carving out a new Mediterranean nation in a mock independence poll, but more Catalans stayed away either because of the poll’s

USA With the completion of a 21-day incubation period for Ebola yesterday, a nurse who successfully fought efforts to restrict her movements hopes to resume a normal life. Kaci Hickox says she fought quarantines in New Jersey and Maine on behalf of all health care volunteers who go to West Africa to fight Ebola.