World briefs

CHINA An overloaded makeshift school bus collided with a truck in eastern China yesterday, killing 11 kindergarteners and the bus driver, state media reported. Three other children were injured. The accident happened in a rural area of Shandong province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Citing police, Xinhua said a minibus hired by a kindergarten as a school bus was designed for eight passengers, but was carrying 14 children at the time of the collision.

INDIA At least six people die in a standoff between police and a religious leader who is believed to be holed up inside his sprawling ashram with thousands of devotees, some of whom are armed, police say. The guru, Sant Rampal, is wanted for questioning in a 2006 murder case. More on p12

NORTH KOREA The world’s boldest effort yet to hold North Korea and leader Kim Jong Un accountable for alleged crimes against humanity moves forward at the United Nations. The U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee approved a resolution that urges the Security Council to refer the country’s harsh human rights situation to the International Criminal Court. More on p13

PAKISTAN A Pakistani court sentences four men to death over the mob killing of a woman who married against her family’s wishes. Farzana Perveen, who was pregnant at the time, was beaten to death by her father and other relatives outside a courthouse in the eastern city of Lahore on May 27. The father surrendered to police after the killing and was among those sentenced to death.

SOUTH KOREA launches a new safety agency in the wake of April’s ferry sinking that killed more than 300 people, mostly teenage students, and exposed shortcomings in disaster response. The creation of the Ministry of Public Safety and Security is part of broader government restructuring plans that center on disbanding the coast guard and splitting its responsibilities between the new ministry and the national police agency.

AFGHANISTAN  A report says half of all medicine available on the Afghan market has either been smuggled into the country or made under sub-standard conditions in neighboring Pakistan. It says up to 300 companies in Pakistan are producing poor quality drugs exclusively for Afghanistan because their products do not meet Pakistani government standards.

AUSTRALIA-FRANCE The French president tells Australia’s prime minister that countries should make their own decisions on how to achieve any binding greenhouse gas reduction targets that emerge from a United Nations climate change conference in Paris next year. The Australian government has been widely criticized for repealing a 2-year-old carbon tax levied on Australia’s worst industrial carbon gas polluters aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions.

IRAQ A suicide car bomber struck in the heart of the northern Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil, killing at least four people, according to initial reports in local Kurdish media. The blast in Irbil, capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, took place near the city’s historic citadel. Mayor Nawza Hadi told the state-run Rudaw TV channel that there were casualties, although the number was not immediately known. Rudaw reported separately that at least four people were killed in the blast, including two police officers. The Iraqi Kurdish health ministry reported at least 22 were wounded.

ISRAELI forces demolish the east Jerusalem home of a Palestinian who carried out a deadly October attack after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised strict measures to deal with a rising wave of violence in the area.

USA The Senate on Tuesday blocked a bill to end bulk collection of Americans’ phone records by the National Security Agency, dealing a blow to President Barack Obama’s primary proposal to rein in domestic surveillance.