World News
May 11, 2008YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's monumental task of feeding and sheltering 1.5 million cyclone survivors suffered yet another blow Sunday when a boat laden with relief supplies - one of the first international shipments - sank on its way to the disaster zone.
Meanwhile, as the official death toll jumped to more than 28,000, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned that "malign neglect" by the country's military rulers was creating a "humanitarian catastrophe of genuinely epic proportions."
YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's state television says the death toll in last week's cyclone has jumped by about 5,000 to 28,458.
It says that the number of missing now stands at 33,416.
YANGON, Myanmar - A Red Cross boat carrying rice and drinking water for cyclone victims sank Sunday, while the death toll jumped to more than 28,000 and aid groups warned of a humanitarian catastrophe.
The double-decker boat that sank was carrying supplies for more than 1,000 people and was the first Red Cross shipment to the disaster area, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said. All four relief workers on board were safe, it said.
As the bloated bodies rise and fall with the current on the Pyapon River, women scrub clothes along the river bank, villagers bathe to cool themselves and a lone child sits on a dock staring aimlessly into the water.
But with little aid getting through to desperate cyclone survivors, the dead have largely been forgotten - left to decay where the brackish waters carried them or waiting to be pulled out to sea by the rising tides.
PICHER, Okla. - Rescue crews and search dogs hunted for survivors or bodies Sunday in the piles of debris left by a tornado that rumbled through this former mining town a day earlier, killing at least seven people.
The same storm system killed at least 14 others in Missouri and one person in Georgia.
BEIRUT - Lebanon hung between fears of all-out civil war and hopes of political compromise Sunday even as government supporters and opponents battled with rockets and machine-guns in the mountains overlooking the capital.
Clashes shifted to outside Beirut over the weekend and fighting on Sunday saw the collapse of pro-government forces in the Aley region near the capital, a stronghold of anti-Syrian Druse leader Walid Jumblatt.
KATHMANDU, Nepal - Police detained more than 600 female Tibetan protesters, including many Buddhist nuns, on Sunday after breaking up several demonstrations in Nepal's capital against China's recent crackdown in Tibet.
The protesters held three separate rallies in Kathmandu but were quickly stopped by police.
KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudan has severed relations with Chad, accusing it of supporting rebels who staged Saturday's surprise attack on Khartoum.
Sudanese officials also say a top leader of the Darfur rebels is still hiding somewhere in the capital area.
WACO, Texas - President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush didn't share their daughter's wedding with the world on Saturday.
But Bush eagerly shared their joy on Sunday over the marriage of daughter Jenna to Henry Hager, telling reporters he and his wife feel "mighty blessed."
HARARE, Zimbabwe - The presidential run-off election pitting President Robert Mugabe against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will not take place in the next few weeks as required by law, the head of the electoral commission said in an interview published Sunday.
Tsvangirai announced on the weekend that he would participate in a run-off against Mugabe - but insisted the vote be held, as the law requires, within 21 days of the May 2 announcement of results from the first vote.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - It isn't visible from the road for obvious reasons.
The field is set back behind a tree line at least half a kilometre from a busy highway that connects Kandahar city with an even wider swath of parched farmland in the Panjwaii and Zhari districts to the west.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Canadian military engineers have taken the first step in plans to rebuild dilapidated apartments that serve as barracks for Afghan National Army soldiers and their families in the Kandahar area.
On Sunday, the engineers inspected the barracks, mostly bombed out shells of 1960s-style apartments originally built by American involved in airport construction.
BAGHDAD - The United States military has ordered a court-martial for a Canadian civilian contractor charged with aggravated assault while working as an army translator in Iraq.
It's the first such military prosecution since the Vietnam War.
BEIJING - China has established a homegrown company to make passenger jumbo jets, state media reported Sunday - a step forward in the country's quest to become less dependent on Boeing and Airbus.
China Commercial Aircraft Co. was established in Shanghai with registered capital of US$2.7 billion, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
MADISON, Wis. - A medical helicopter has crashed in Wisconsin, killing three people on board.
The dead include a doctor, a nurse and the pilot.
ISTANBUL, Turkey - Emine Yaman lies in bed, her legs rigid, her feet prone to sores and swelling. Paralyzed by a bullet her husband fired into her chest, she is the face of domestic violence in a country still struggling to discard long-held cultural practices that denigrate women.
She wears diapers and reaches for a knotted sheet hanging from an overhead bar to shift her upper body. The weak bones in her 40-year-old hips, knees and left arm have broken since the shooting in 1999. Infections induce fevers and she takes antibiotics. A municipal doctor sometimes visits her bare apartment beside a highway in Turkey's biggest city.
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama has overtaken Hillary Rodham Clinton in superdelegate endorsements for the first time.
Obama picked up four superdelegate endorsements, including two from the Virgin Islands who had previously endorsed Clinton.
YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's military rulers held a referendum Saturday aimed at solidifying their hold on power while brazenly turning cyclone relief efforts into a propaganda campaign.
In some cases, generals' names were scribbled onto boxes of foreign aid before being distributed.
