World in brief

Japan approves new sanctions

Japan’s Cabinet approved a new set of financial sanctions against North Korea on Tuesday in response to the communist nation’s missile tests in July, Kyodo News agency reported.

The sanctions – called for in a U.N. Security Council resolution that denounced the July launches – were expected to ban withdrawals of money and overseas remittances by groups and individuals suspected of links to North Korean weapons programs.

Japan’s Finance Ministry and other government bodies administering the sanctions planned to announce the decision later, Kyodo said. The new restrictions were to come into effect later Tuesday, it added.

Veracruz, Mexico

Americas’ oldest writing discovered

Archaeologists believe they have found the oldest example of writing discovered in the Americas – 62 symbols carved into a slab of stone as many as 2,900 years ago. The 26-pound slab, unearthed in Veracruz, Mexico, has writing the scientists say is from the Olmec people, believed to be the earliest civilization in Mexico and Central America.

Most of the writing appears to be symbolic, but there are recognizable images, too, including an insect, a corn plant, a tabletop altar and a cross – an image known from previously discovered Olmec art to be especially significant to them

The slab, made of the mineral serpentine, was dug up in a gravel pit by road builders in the late 1990s. Diehl, in a report in the journal Science, dated the stone to 900 to 800 B.C., making it the oldest example of Mesoamerican writing by 400 years.

BAGHDAD, Iraq

41 killed across Iraq

Bombers and gunmen killed at least 41 people and wounded dozens across Iraq on Monday, while parliament leaders again put off debate on legislation that some Iraqis fear could threaten the country’s unity and bring even more violence.

The U.S. military relinquished control of a second Iraqi army division as Iraqi officials prepared to further tighten security ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when insurgent attacks tend to spike.

Papua, Indonesia

Scientists find new species

Researchers have discovered dozens of new marine species on the northwestern end of Indonesia’s Papua province, including two new species of epaulette sharks, nicknamed “walking sharks” because they propel themselves across the ocean floor on their pectoral fins.

In all, the scientists discovered more than 50 species of fish, coral and mantis shrimp in the Bird’s Head Seascape in the center of the Coral Triangle. The seascape is home to more than 1,200 species of fish and almost 600 species of reef-building coral, and only 11 percent of the area is protected.

Compiled from news wires