The World in Brief

Storm hurts 32 on Okinawa, moves on

TOKYO — A strong storm swerved toward Japan’s heavily populated main islands Wednesday after slamming through the southern islands of Okinawa, where it dumped heavy rain, knocked out power and injured at least 32 people. Two people died in rainfall-related flooding in other areas of the country.

Typhoon Neoguri was downgraded to a storm by late Wednesday after losing strength. But it toppled trees, flooded cars and bent railings in Okinawa, which experienced its heaviest rainfall in a half-century, according to the Okinawan government.

Neoguri was forecast to hit Kyushu island today before traveling across the main island of Honshu.

Kyushu’s Fukuoka prefecture issued warnings for strong winds, high tides and heavy rains, and advised people to stay indoors as much as possible.

14 Syrians slain in attack tied to rebels

BEIRUT — Syrian rebels rampaged through a Sunni village in the central province of Hama on Wednesday, firing indiscriminately at civilians and killing 14 people, including seven women, state media and opposition activists said.

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said an “armed terrorist group” was behind the dawn attack on the village of Khatab.

Syrian Minister of Justice Najm al-Ahmad called the attack in Khatab “a terrorist crime” and ordered a judicial inquiry.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the attack, saying the rebels accused the village’s Sunni Muslim inhabitants of “cooperating with the criminal regime” in Damascus. The group documents the violence in Syria through an extensive network of activists on the ground.

Sunni Muslims dominate rebel ranks and the opposition, fighting to topple President Bashar Assad’s government, which is predominantly made up of Alawites, a sect in Shiite Islam. Meanwhile, veteran Italian-Swedish diplomat Staffan de Mistura was chosen by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to replace Lakhdar Brahimi as the international point man on Syria, U.N. diplomats said Wednesday.

The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said de Mistura will solely be the U.N. envoy — not the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy as Brahimi was — and will have an Arab deputy. Brahimi resigned May 31 after nearly two years of failed efforts to end the Syrian civil war.

Somali police, spy chiefs fired

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somalia’s government fired the police and intelligence chiefs a day after Islamic militants attacked the heavily guarded presidential palace in the capital, Mogadishu, the information minister announced Wednesday.

Government troops and African Union peacekeepers repelled the attack, and no government official was hurt, Mustafa Dhuhulow said. Three of the four extremist attackers were shot dead by soldiers after they forced their way into the presidential palace late Tuesday, prompting an exchange of gunfire, he said. The fourth militant was wounded.

Dhuhulow said Wednesday that Police Commander Abdihakim Saaid and Intelligence Chief Bashir Gobe were replaced immediately.

Author of bull-run guide gored in Spain

PAMPLONA, Spain — An American who co-wrote the book Fiesta: How to Survive the Bulls of Pamplona was one of two men gored at the annual bull-running event.

Bill Hillmann, a 32-year-old from Chicago and a longtime participant in the nine-day Pamplona street party, was gored twice in the right thigh during one of the daily bull runs, organizers said on their website.

The injury was serious but not life-threatening, the Navarra regional government said in a statement.

“He collided with another guy who was running in the opposite direction. Bill fell and as he did the bull gored his right leg,” said Michael Hemingway, a great-grandson of writer Ernest Hemingway, who immortalized the running of the bulls in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.

The teenager was just steps away photographing the event, which he has attended for several years with his father, John Hemingway, a co-author who worked with Hillmann.

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