World briefs

CHINA A gauge of China’s manufacturing activity falls to a six-month low in November in a new sign an economic slowdown is deepening. HSBC Corp. said yesterday its monthly purchasing managers’ index fell to 50.0 from the previous month’s 50.4.

S KOREA The U.S. Osan Air Base in South Korea lifts a lockdown that had been ordered as a precaution after someone reported an unscheduled “active shooter drill” at the high school. Security forces swept the school and its perimeters and found no injuries or suspicious activities, according to a posting on the base’s Facebook site.

QATAR  A representative for an American couple cleared Sunday by a Qatari appeals court of wrongdoing in the death of their 8-year-old adopted daughter but blocked from leaving the country has blasted a continued travel ban against them as “institutional kidnapping.” Eric Volz told The Associated Press that Matthew and Grace Huang hoped to leave the Gulf nation yesterday but have been told by the U.S. government that a number of procedural steps must still be completed before they can depart.

JAPAN-INDONESIA A sprawling coal-burning power station that hums and coughs along the Indonesia coast is labeled as a Japanese contribution to the global fight against climate change. Japan has helped fund three coal-fired plants in Indonesia with nearly USD1 billion in loans earmarked as climate finance, or money provided by rich countries to poorer ones to tackle global warming, The Associated Press has found. More on p12

NIGERIA  Witnesses and police say twin blasts exploded in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, in a crowded market where two female suicide bombers killed 70 people a week ago. Trader Bala Dauda says he saw victims dripping with blood and people missing limbs. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but people blamed Boko Haram, the Islamic extremist group that has carried out many such attacks in a 5-year insurgency that has killed thousands.

ISRAEL A Palestinian woman stabbed and slightly wounded an Israeli civilian before being shot and wounded by Israeli security forces in the West Bank yesterday, the military said. The Israeli military said the attacker was taken for medical treatment, and Israeli media reports said she was seriously wounded. The Israeli was treated at the scene.

PERU Negotiators from more than 190 countries gathered together yesterday in Lima for the last main stop of the U.N. climate negotiations on the road to a planned global warming deal in Paris next year. The slow-moving talks have gained momentum in the past two months with pledges from the world’s top carbon polluters — China, the U.S. and the EU — to limit their emissions in the next 10-15 years.