■ Bangladesh
Floods maroon 3 million
Floodwaters have covered large areas of Bangladesh, hampering efforts yesterday to rescue three million people marooned by rising waters and raising the death toll to 13. Two children died after they were bitten by snakes in the roiling waters, officials said. The town of Sylhet lay under 60cm of water, officials said. Road links were severed and the railway was threatened by the floods. More rain was expected to flood areas around the capital, Dhaka. Rescue operations have yet to start in many areas. "We have enough relief goods but it is difficult to reach people in remote villages due to bad weather and a shortage of boats," said relief official M. Mostafa Kamal.
■ India
Death toll rises to 96
The death toll from floods swamping large portions of northeastern India rose to 96 yesterday as six people died overnight, officials said. "Two paramilitary soldiers were drowned in Arunachal Pradesh and four civilians died in two separate inci-dents of boats capsizing in Assam," a police spokes-man said. The mighty Brahma-putra river rose in some areas by almost 3m, displac-ing up to 2.6 million people. The situation deteriorated after a dam burst in Bhutan. Army helicopters were air-dropping food and relief materials. "The water current is so strong that boats cannot reach several areas where thousands of people were stranded," Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi said.
■ Hong Kong
Police seek tourists' rapist
Police in Hong Kong yesterday stepped up the hunt for the rapist of two British backpackers. Posters featuring an artist's impres-sion of the rapist are being printed and a HK$100,000 (US$12,800) reward is offered. The women were raped a month ago near their rural youth hostel. The tattooed attacker tailed the women for 45 minutes as they made their way back from a bus stop to their hostel. He grabbed a knife from one of the women when she used it to try to frighten him off. The women helped police artists prepare a detailed impression of the rapist, although Superinten-dent Gareth Williams said there had still been no major breakthrough in the hunt.
■ Australia
Killer white shark hunted
A hunt was launched Sunday for a shark that killed a surfer at a popular West Australian beach. Helicop-ters and a government ship began scouring waters south of Perth attempting to find the shark that fatally attacked the 29-year-old man Saturday. Witnesses said the shark knocked the man off his board then savaged his midriff as he fell. Police said two sharks up to 5m long may have been involved. One witness said that teenagers who pulled the victim from the water said the shark was "as big as a car."
■ Australia
Dog nears 27th birthday
A 26-year-old mongrel living with an Aboriginal family in Australia's outback has the potential to become the world's oldest living dog, a newspaper reported yester-day. Jerry, an Australian cattle dog-bull terrier cross, will next month turn 27 -- the equivalent of 189 years for a human, said veterinar-ian Honey Nelson in Sydney's Daily Telegraph. The oldest living dog in the 2004 edition of Guinness World Records is a 27-year-old beagle in the US state of Virginia. Jerry's owner, Waddie Harris, credited Jerry's longevity his high-protein diet of outback wildlife and table scraps.
■ France
Jewish' woman attacked
A 23-year-old mother with a baby was attacked on a passenger train near Paris by six young men who thought she was Jewish, French police reported yesterday. In the attack, which occurred on Friday morning near the town of Sarcelles, six men of North African origin armed with knives cut the victim's dress and hair and drew a swastika on her belly with a felt-tip pen. The woman's baby was tossed out of his pram as the attackers fled at a stop. The youths had taken the woman's identification and mistakenly assumed she was Jewish. Other passengers on the train reportedly did not come to the woman's aid.
■ Vatican
Pope to return stolen icon
Pope John Paul II will next month return the priceless Our Lady of Kazan icon, stolen from St Petersburg in the early 20th century, to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Vatican said on Saturday. Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the 16th-century icon, which the pope had previously hoped to return in person, would be presented to Patriarch Alexy II on Aug. 28. The icon has become something of a symbol of John Paul II's long-cherished intention to visit Russia, an event which has been blocked by strained relations between the Orthodox Church and the Vatican.
■ Kosovo
Finnish soldiers wounded
Four Finnish NATO peacekeepers were slightly wounded in a shooting incident in Kosovo late on Saturday, a NATO spokesman said. Thomas Magnusson said the soldiers had been shot at with a hunting rifle near the village of Lipljan, just south of the capital, Pristina. "Luckily, they sustained only minor injuries," he said. They were being treated in hospital. The spokesman confirmed NATO-led peacekeepers had arrested six people after the incident who were then handed over to UN police. There are some 20,000 NATO soldiers stationed as peacekeepers in Kosovo, an ethnic-Albanian dominated province in southern Serbia.
■ Guyana
Human trade continues
Police have detained a liquor store owner who allegedly kidnapped three women and a 13-year-old girl weeks after the US accused Guyana of not doing enough to stop human trafficking. The store owner, whose identity was not released, was arrested on Friday in Corentyne, a community on the Suriname border. The women and girl, also unidentified, were also detained. Police said they suspected that the store was used to hold kidnapped women and girls, who were later taken to Suriname and Brazil. Last month, the US State Department listed Guyana among 10 countries that could face sanctions this year if they don't significantly improve efforts to stop human trafficking. Many of the people trafficked are women and girls used in the sex trade.
■ United Kingdom
Jellyfish swamp coastline
An army of jellyfish has invaded the seas around the UK, prompting calls by biologists for a mass survey of the mysterious creatures to shed light on their habits. Masses of electric blue, bright red and purple jellyfish, some of them with 9m stinging tentacles, have been found on beaches and in the seas of England and Scotland, the Marine Conservation Society said on Friday.
■ United States
Senate report redacted
An estimated 20 percent of a Senate committee's report on faulty intelligence was deleted at the request of the CIA, congressional officials said Friday. The deletions have renewed a debate about whether CIA officials were trying to suppress certain information to avoid embarrassment. The CIA originally asked that about half the Senate Intelligence Committee's report be blacked out. The congressional officials said that while the agency's original requests included many items that were "unreasonable and arbitrary," they now believed that most of the sections that will remain blacked out relate to national security. But Tom Blanton, the executive director of the National Security Archive, a research group affiliated with George Washington University, asserted that the deletions were intended to prevent embarrassment at the agency.
■ Colombia
Rebels reject ceasefire
Leftist Colombian rebels on Saturday rejected a ceasefire offer from the government, saying Bogota's proposal appeared "improvised" and lacked a concrete concept. In a letter to Mexican mediator Andres Valencia, the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels also criticized the government for starting peace talks with right-wing paramilitaries. ELN charged that several drug dealers are among the right-wing paramilitaries. Peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo on Thursday sent the cease-fire offer to Valencia. The government said it would stop all military actions against ELN if the rebel group halts hostilities, a condition for peace talks to begin.
■ Iran
Warrant issued for editor
The Iranian judiciary issued an arrest warrant for the chief editor of the reformist daily Tosse'e and closed down a monthly, the news agency IRNA reported yesterday. The arrest warrant for Tosse'e editor Gholi Sheikhi was issued after he refused to show up at a court to answer charges of propagating against the Islamic system, IRNA said. The judiciary also banned the reformist monthly Aftab which had allegedly published articles against the principles of Islamic rulership. According to Iran's Association for Press Freedom, more than 90 publications have been closed by the judiciary, 21 journalists remain in jail and more than 65 reporters have been summoned on charges the association said were baseless.
■ Africa
Locusts on the move
A shadow will fall over Africa this week. Vast tracts of land will be darkened and destroyed and the sky will turn black. The day of the locust has returned. Experts are warning that Africa is on the brink of its worst plague of the insects for nearly 20 years. The UN describes the situation as "extremely critical." Swarms big enough to engulf London were monitored by UN analysts last week. They watched with mounting concern as swarms of locusts began to sweep southwards from breeding grounds in North Africa. Forecasts say the insects will move at 100km a day.
■ Morocco
Power line kills 8
Eight people were killed Saturday when a high-voltage power line pole collapsed on a busy market in the Moroccan port of Casablanca. The victims were electrocuted, officials said. Another 42 people were injured, five of them seriously. The power pole was knocked over by a billboard that collapsed.
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