World briefs

CHINA A man with a kitchen knife killed a 1-year-old boy and injured two other children in the southern Chinese city of Zhongshan near Hong Kong

CHINA McDonald’s and KFC in China face a new food safety scare after a Shanghai television station reports a supplier sold the companies expired beef and chicken. The companies say they immediately stopped using meat from the supplier.

US  Barack Obama said Russian president Vladimir Putin has “direct responsibility” to compel separatists in Ukraine to let investigators recover remains and collect evidence from the Malaysian airliner crash site. “The burden is now on Russia,” Obama said at the White House. “Russia will only further isolate itself from the international community, and the costs for Russia’s behavior will only continue to increase.”

VIETNAM  A typhoon that barreled into northern Vietnam killed at least 11 people and left several missing, state media said yesterday, while in China the death toll from the strongest storm to strike the country’s south in four decades rose to 26.

PHILIPPINES Twenty-eight people, including prominent activists and a retired Catholic bishop, file an impeachment complaint against Philippine President Benigno Aquino III for his implementation of a major economic stimulus program that the Supreme Court has declared partly unconstitutional.

LYBIA  Clashes between rival Libyan militias fighting for control of the international airport in the capital, Tripoli, have killed 47 people over the last week, Libya’s Health Ministry said. The ministry said on its website late Sunday that the fighting also left 120 people wounded. It also said it had not yet received the full casualty report.

INDIA Armed bandits in drought-stricken northern India are threatening to kill hundreds of villagers unless they deliver 35 buckets of water each day to the outlaws in their rural hideouts. Since the threats were delivered last week, 28 villages have been obeying the order, taking turns handing over what the bandits are calling a daily “water tax.”

NETHERLANDS  Relatives of Dutch victims killed in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 are meeting with their king, queen and prime minister amid growing anger at the treatment of their loved ones’ bodies by pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine.

GERMANY  At least 15 swimmers have drowned in German waters while bathing on the hot weekend, with several more people still missing, German local media reported yesterday. According to the report, seven of them died in the lowly populated coastal state of Mecklenburg West Pomerania.

CANADA BlackBerry has appointed Marty Beard, the former chief executive of LiveOps, Inc. as its new chief operating officer. Beard starts immediately and will be responsible for such things as marketing, BlackBerry 10 app development and customer care and quality. The CEO job has been vacant since November 2013 when Kristian Tear left the company.