■ INDIA
Bus plunges into gorge
A bus carrying about 50 people skidded off a mountain road and fell into a gorge in the north of the country on Wednesday, killing 19 people and injuring about 30, police said. Rescuers pulled the injured passengers from the mangled bus, they said. Some were critically hurt. The accident took place at Kotkhai, northeast of Shimla, capital of the mountain state of Himachal Pradesh. Bus accidents on mountain roads are common and highway regulations are poorly enforced. Last week, at least 22 people were killed when a bus skidded off a mountain road.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Armed group seizes workers
An unidentified armed group kidnapped 12 workers -- eight Filipinos, three South Koreans and a Nigerian -- at a South Korean company's power plant construction site in Nigeria yesterday, the company said. The armed group broke into the firm's accommodation facilities and drove the abductees away in a stolen vehicle at 2am on yesterday from Afam power station, about 30km northeast of Port Harcourt, Nigeria's southern oil hub, a statement from Daewoo Engineering and Construction said. South Korea confirmed the kidnapping and said it was unclear what the captors were demanding. The gunmen had not yet presented demands, a Daewoo official said.
■ PAKISTAN
Several injured in protests
Several people were injured in another day of angry scuffles outside the heavily guarded Supreme Court yesterday in the latest protest over the sacking of the country's chief judge. Police said dozens of lawyers, marching in support of ousted Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, ignored warnings not to try to enter the building, where he was appearing before a judicial panel, and clashed with police. "Lawyers attacked us with sticks and we had to retaliate," officer Mehboob Ahmed said. President Pervez Musharraf is accused of trying to weaken the judiciary and tighten his grip on power.
■ PHILIPPINES
Aquino's phone `bugged'
Repairmen working near the home of former president Corazon Aquino found a tape recorder and alleged wiretapping device on her line in a telephone switching box, officials said yesterday. Aquino, 74, a political icon who restored democracy in the Philippines after leading a 1986 "people power" revolt with mass protests, said she had suspected her phone was bugged "ever since the martial law" period in the 1970s. "I've been through the worst times before," she told reporters. "All of us in the opposition then were almost sure our phones were bugged."
■ INDIA
Gere's judge transferred
A judge who issued an arrest warrant against Richard Gere for publicly kissing a Bollywood actress has been transferred from his job, a media report said yesterday. Dinesh Gupta, a magistrate in the northwestern city of Jaipur, issued arrest orders last week for both Gere and actress Shilpa Shetty after the kissing incident at an AIDS awareness event in New Delhi earlier in March. The Times of India reported that Gupta was transferred from Jaipur to the small town of Kishangarh several hours away. The paper quoted High Court Commissioner C.P. Singh as saying the transfer was "routine," but he noted that the order came from a state chief justice.
■ KENYA
Rustlers kill 14 villagers
Livestock raiders in a remote part of the country have killed 14 people, including eight children, in the latest outbreak of deadly cattle rustling, police said on Wednesday. Attackers armed with AK-47 rifles stormed the Lokwamosing area in the Turkana region, one of the country's many arid rural outposts where clans fight for scant resources and bloody livestock raids are frequent.
RSS