World briefs

PHILIPPINES Van-riding assailants gunned down the vice mayor of a small Philippine city south of Manila on the weekend, police said, the third such brazen killing of a local official in the past week.

THAILAND’s government pledged yesterday to ensure justice for Chinese victims of a tour boat that sank in a storm off the southern resort island of Phuket, killing 42 people and leaving another 14 missing.

CAMBODIA Thirty-three pregnant Cambodian women hired to act as surrogate mothers were formally charged with surrogacy and human trafficking offenses.

ETHIOPIA-ERITREIA The leaders of longtime adversaries Ethiopia and Eritrea met for the first time in nearly two decades yesterday amid a rapid and dramatic diplomatic thaw.

INDIA Thousands participated in the funeral of two young men and a teenage girl in disputed Kashmir on the weekend, hours after police say they were killed when government forces fired at anti-India protesters.

TURKEY’s government yesterday issued an emergency decree dismissing thousands of public servants for alleged links to terror groups. 

SPAIN A man who was gored and three others who were trampled in the first running of the bulls of this year’s San Fermin festival were hospitalized on the weekend, officials in the Spanish city of Pamplona said.

BRITAIN Prime Minister Theresa May touted the benefits of her latest Brexit proposal to create a partial free trade zone between the U.K. and the European Union, saying Saturday it is possible EU citizens would receive preferential treatment for employment after Britain leaves the bloc.

SOUTH AMERICA An alliance whose backers once dreamed creating a sort of South American version of the European Union may lose its headquarters. Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno said he plans to ask the Union of South American Nations to give up its central office near Ecuador’s capital.

BRAZIL Police in Rio de Janeiro have arrested a Brazilian man suspected of killing his ex-girlfriend in Sydney, Australia, in late April.