World briefs

SOUTH CHINA SEA The U.S. military has deployed the third aircraft carrier this year to patrol the disputed South China Sea, where Washington has criticized China’s military buildup on new man-made islands. 

VIETNAM Flash floods and landslides have damaged roads, homes and crops in northern Vietnam, where 15 people have died and authorities are searching for 11 more missing.

JAPAN A knife-wielding man killed an officer in a neighborhood police station in northern Japan yesterday, took the man’s gun and fatally shot a security guard at the entrance to a nearby elementary school, police said.

AUSTRALIA’s House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved national security legislation yesterday that would ban covert foreign interference in domestic politics and make industrial espionage for a foreign power a crime. 

IRAN has detained a journalist who served as an adviser to a prominent opposition leader under house arrest. The state-run IRNA news agency also reported the arrest, saying she had used a mask to hide from police.

SYRIA Jordan’s foreign minister says his country’s border with Syria will remain closed, as thousands of people in southern Syria flee a government offensive.

TURKEY’s state-run news agency says authorities have issued initial detention warrants for 138 people, including military personnel, for suspected links to a network led by a U.S.-based cleric who Turkey accuses of orchestrating a 2016 failed coup attempt.

ITALY-MALTA A German aid ship carrying more than 200 migrants headed toward Malta after Italy agreed yesterday to take in some of the passengers, ending Europe’s second impasse this month over the people rescued off Libya’s coast by private humanitarian groups.

SPAIN Catalonia’s new separatist chief plans to deliver one message to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in their highly-anticipated meeting next month: an authorized ballot over Catalan secession is the only solution to the country’s worst political crisis in decades.

ARGENTINA A strike led by Argentina’s largest union confederation has shut down much of the country’s capital. There has been widespread discontent over continuing high inflation, sharp rises in utility bills, layoffs of public workers and a cap on pay raises.

VENEZUELA A collapsing water system is prompting families in wealthy enclaves of Venezuela’s capital to drill illegal wells so they can flush and wash without thinking twice.