World News
May 16, 2008LUOSHUI, China - Troops dug burial pits in this quake-shattered town and black smoke poured from crematorium chimneys elsewhere in central China as priorities began shifting Thursday from the hunt for survivors to dealing with the dead. Officials said the final toll could more than double to 50,000.
As the massive military-led recovery operation inched farther into regions cut off by Monday's quake, the government sought to enlist the public's help with an appeal for everything from hammers to cranes and, in a turnabout, began accepting foreign aid missions, the first from regional rival Japan.
BEIJING - The Sichuan government says the official death toll from this week's powerful earthquake in the province has risen to 21,000 people.
Vice-Governor Li Chengyun announced the figure at a news conference today in the provincial capital of Chengdu.
YANGON, Myanmar - The United Nations said Friday that severe restrictions by Myanmar's military junta have left aid agencies largely in the dark about the extent of survivors' suffering two weeks after a killer cyclone left up to 2.5 million people destitute.
John Holmes, UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, will go to Myanmar on Sunday to try to convince junta leaders to grant more access for UN relief workers and massively scale up aid efforts, said Amanda Pitt, a UN spokeswoman in Bangkok, Thailand.
BEIJING - After days of refusing foreign relief workers, China has accepted offers from four countries to send in rescue teams.
Hours after saying it will accept a Japanese rescue team, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement early Friday that specialist crews from Russia, South Korea, and Singapore would be welcome as well. The turnabout came as the death toll from Monday's magnitude-7.9 quake soared.
WASHINGTON - It's the gift that keeps on giving.
Barack Obama picked up more heavyweight support Thursday after a key endorsement this week delivered another blow to Hillary Clinton's longshot campaign for the Democratic nomination. Obama drew at least five delegates from former candidate John Edwards, who jumped off the fence Wednesday to support the front-runner.
CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden says in a new message that al-Qaida will continue its holy war against Israel and its allies until it liberates Palestine.
Friday's message comes as U.S. President George W. Bush wraps up his visit to Israel to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state.
KABUL, Afghanistan - Clashes in eastern and southern Afghanistan have left eight militants dead, while a roadside bomb killed an Afghan soldier.
Afghan army commander in Zhari district Rehmatullah Khan says the bomb hit a group of Afghan soldiers during a foot patrol Friday morning in southern Kandahar province.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - A military spokesman says a suicide bomb blast in Sri Lanka's capital has killed six policemen and wounded 50 other people.
Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara says a suicide bomber on a motorbike targeted a bus carrying policemen Friday on a busy street in Colombo. He says authorities suspect separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in the attack.
BEIJING - A report says the death toll rose to 43 from the hand, foot and mouth disease virus that has sickened tens of thousands of children across China.
A 22-month-old girl from eastern Jiangxi province died Thursday in a local hospital, health officials told the state-run Xinhua News Agency.
PARIS - A French police official says authorities in France, Germany and the Netherlands have detained 10 people in a probe into suspected Islamic terror financing.
The official says police are trying to determine whether the suspects helped finance Islamic militants in Uzbekistan.
LONDON - A letter in which Albert Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as "pretty childish" has sold at auction for more than $400,000.
Bloomsbury Auctions says Friday that the handwritten letter sold to an overseas collector after frenetic bidding late Thursday in London.
CANBERRA, Australia - Defence authorities outraged animal rights campaigners Friday by reviving plans to kill 400 kangaroos that are causing environmental damage on the outskirts of Australia's capital.
The Defence Department abandoned the cull plan in March in the face of an international outcry and decided to truck the kangaroos from the abandoned military site in suburban Canberra to remote forest land.
TOKYO - The U.S. military says a military court has found an American marine guilty of abusive sexual conduct of a Japanese teenager in Okinawa, southern Japan.
The military said Staff Sgt. Tyrone Hadnott was sentenced Friday to four years in prison. Four other charges, including rape of a child under 16, making false official statements, adultery and "kidnapping through inveigling," or trickery, were dropped.
BAGHDAD - Gunmen ambushed an Iranian Embassy convoy in Baghdad, wounding three Iranians, including two diplomats, and an Iraqi.
Iranian Embassy spokesman Manoucher Taslimi says the convoy was en route to a revered Shiite shrine in the northern neighbourhood of Kazimiyah when it came under fire.
MANILA, Philippines - Police say eight people, most of them bank employees, have been fatally shot in a bank robbery in a town south of Manila.
Police Gen. Ricardo Padilla says the victims were found fatally shot when the bank opened at 9 a.m. Friday. He says two security guards were missing, leading authorities to suspect they were involved in the robbery. Padilla said another security guard was among the dead.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Unknown assailants have detonated a bomb outside a Christian school in Gaza City, causing no injuries.
Damage from the pre-dawn explosion is visible at the entrance to the Zahwa Rosary School. The school is run by nuns but caters mainly to Muslim students. Friday's bombing appears to be the latest in a string of attacks on Christian institutions in the overwhelmingly Muslim territory.
YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's junta warned Thursday that legal action would be taken against people who trade or hoard international aid as the cyclone's death toll soared above 43,000.
It was the first acknowledgment by the military government, albeit indirectly, of problems with relief operations in the aftermath of cyclone Nargis.
KATHMANDU, Nepal - Hundreds of Tibetan exiles calling for freedom in their homeland demonstrated in the Nepalese capital Friday until police stopped them.
About 500 Tibetans, many of them women, marched on the outskirts of Kathmandu for about three kilometres holding banners that said "Free Tibet, Tibet for Tibetans." Police at first tried to detain some of them, but after scuffles lasting several minutes the protesters returned to their refugee camp at the southern edge of Kathmandu. No-one was arrested.
