World briefs

LAOS Authorities in Laos ordered closer monitoring of hydroelectric facilities as they investigate why a dam in the country’s southeast collapsed earlier this week, killing at least 27 people and leaving 131 missing.

CHINA-PHILIPPINES Almost two years after China pledged USD24 billion in investment to the Philippines, barely any projects have materialized, prompting deepening concerns that President Rodrigo Duterte has undermined the country’s sovereignty with little to show in return.

SAUDI ARABIA Oil prices rose to a 10-day high yesterday after Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company announced it was temporarily halting crude shipments through a strategic Red Sea shipping lane after Yemen’s Shiite rebels attacked two tankers in the strait the previous day.

SYRIA The death toll from coordinated attacks by Islamic State fighters on a usually peaceful southern Syrian city and surrounding countryside has climbed to 216, a local health official said yesterday, in the worst violence to hit the area since the country’s conflict began.

BRITAIN-RUSSIA Typhoons from Britain’s Royal Air Force based in Romania have been scrambled in response to a Russian warplane flying near NATO airspace over the Black Sea.

GERMANY A Berlin court has convicted a Vietnamese man of involvement in a kidnapping case that has strained relations between Germany and Vietnam.

ITALY Police have begun clearing a shanty camp inhabited by members of the minority Roma community, despite a European Union court ruling halting demolition.

FRANCE The former security aide to President Emmanuel Macron who triggered an uproar after a video showed him beating a protester acknowledged a “huge mistake” in attending the demonstration equipped as a police officer.

US A fast-moving wildfire — believed to have been sparked by arson — tore through trees, burned five homes and forced evacuation orders for an entire mountain town as California sweltered under a heat wave and battled ferocious fires at both ends of the state. 

COLOMBIA Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says Colombia’s new government must consolidate peace and urgently address major challenges, from an upsurge in violence to the need to restore confidence in the future among leftist rebels who laid down their arms.