A river ship carrying 456 passengers and crew on an 11-day Yangtze cruise from Nanjing to Chongqing, China, was struck by a tornado on June 1, causing it to capsize and killing 442 people. Most of the passengers were senior Chinese nationals. The 14 survivors included the captain and three crewmembers. 

The 20-year-old Eastern Star had last gone through routine maintenance in late 2014 and was licensed for sailing until April 25, 2016. 

Fighters of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) attacked the Kurdish-held city of Kobane, Syria, on June 25, executing at least 120 civilians. IS attacked Kobane in January but was repulsed by Kurdish fighters supported by US air strikes. 

The IS attack on Kobane came after Kurdish forces, this June, took control of the IS-held towns of Ain Issa and Tal Abyad, which IS had taken from Syrian forces in June 2014. Ain Issa is just north of the de facto IS capital, Raqqa, along an...

In South Korea, an outbreak of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) had killed 33 people and sickened at least 185 more as of press time.

The outbreak was traced back to a Korean man who returned from a trip to the Middle East in early May and sought medical care at several hospitals before being diagnosed. At one point, more than 6,700 people who may have been exposed were kept in quarantine. On June 26, after 14 days with no new MERS cases, two hospitals in Daejeon had their...