FLOODING TOLL: Scores of deaths have been reported across four countries as the region copes with damage to important agricultural zones and populated areas
Widespread flooding has crippled agricultural centers and killed dozens as heavy rains continue across Southeast Asia.

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Japan and North Korea will hold talks over the weekend on the latter's abductions of Japanese citizens, the North's nuclear weapons development and other issues, Japan said yesterday.

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Conservationists and volunteers used a high tide yesterday to refloat about 110 pilot whales from a beach where they became stranded a day earlier on New Zealand's South Island. At least 15 others died, a conservation official said.

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INVESTIGATION: A scientist who worked with South Korea's stem cell pioneer Hwang Woo-suk wants his university to review earlier papers written by Hwang
A former colleague of embattled South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk said yesterday he has asked his university to widen its investigation into the stem cell researcher's work and review earlier purported breakthroughs.

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POLITICAL FREEDOM: Pro-democracy lawmakers vetoed the first part of a reform plan, which would have doubled the size of a panel that selects the chief executive
Pro-democracy lawmakers voted down the government's proposal to expand an 800-member panel that picks Hong Kong's leader.

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Greenpeace activists have made contact with a Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean and confronted the whalers in inflatable boats, the environmental group said yesterday.

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ON TRIAL: The US wants a militant jailed for life in Germany for hijacking a TWA jet and killing a US Navy diver in 1985 to stand trial in America after he was paroled on Tuesday
A hijacker in a terrorist act that riveted the US -- the 1985 seizure of a TWA jet in which a US Navy diver was killed -- has returned home to Lebanon, paroled by Germany after serving 19 years of a life sentence.

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The EU on Tuesday condemned Iran for continued human-rights abuses on the eve of a meeting between the two sides over the Islamic Republic's controversial fledgling nuclear capability.

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British Prime Minister Tony Blair denounced "reactionary" British Euroskeptics for living in the era of Winston Churchill on Tuesday, as he mounted a passionate defense of the UK's membership of the EU.

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A passenger train rammed into another at a station south of Rome, injuring about 50 people -- some critically -- and temporarily trapping others in the wreckage, officials said.

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ACT OF PROTEST: Upset over revelations about secret spying authorized by the president and the legality of it, federal judge James Robertson decided to step down
A federal judge has resigned from a special court in protest over President George W. Bush's secret authorization of a countrywide warrantless domestic spying program, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

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NO FEAR: A man gave evidence of the brutal torture he suffered as a 14-year-old to the court in what was a quieter day in the trial of the former leader
The trial of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein on charges of crimes against humanity resumed yesterday with a witness describing the killings and torture of men from an Iraqi village where the former dictator survived an assassination attempt.

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IMMIGRATION FRICTION: The US' southern neighbor has gone all out to try to influence US opinion over the controversial plan to wall parts of the Mexican border
Mexico has called a US proposal to extend walls along the US border unacceptable and is seeking the international community's support to block the measure.

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■ China
University head rescued
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