QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Bor has already been the site of two violent clashes in less than two weeks. Its people,
many of whom are sheltering in the U.N. compound, cannot withstand another battle.”
Akshaya Kumar, a South Sudan analyst for the U.S.-based Enough Project, on civilians living in Bor who are caught in the crossfire of violence in the area Article, 7A
Indian express train fire toll rises to 26
KOTHACHERUVU, India - The death toll from a fire on an express train in southern India rose to at least 26 Saturday, officials said.
As the fire and thick, black smoke raced through a car about 3:45 a.m., many passengers became trapped and suffocated after the doors failed to open, officials said.
Other passengers broke windows and saved themselves by jumping from the train.
Sixty-seven passengers were in the carriage when the fire broke out about a mile from the small town of Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh state, said railways spokesman C.S. Gupta.
The train was brought to a halt and the burning coach was delinked from the rest of the cars to prevent the fire from spreading, Gupta said.
Firefighters put out the blaze and retrieved at least 26 bodies, including two children, said a railway official at the site of the fire. More than a dozen people were taken to hospitals with injuries suffered when they jumped from the train, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Railways Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said preliminary reports from the site indicated that the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit. An investigation was underway.
Bribes topple 518 in Chinese legislature
BEIJING - A city in southern China has dismissed most members of its legislature after they were found to have taken millions of dollars in bribes in an election fraud, a Communist Party-run newspaper reported Saturday.
The scandal implicated 518 lawmakers in the city of Hengyang’s 529-member legislature, according to the Hunan Daily.
The Hengyang People’s Congress had convened earlier this year to pick 76 delegates to represent the city in the provincial people’s congress in accordance with Chinese election law.
Provincial authorities began to receive complaints of vote-buying in February, and a special team was set up to investigate the allegations, the Hunan Daily said.
It said that after 518 Hengyang lawmakers and 68 staff members were found to have accepted bribes, 512 lawmakers were dismissed. The other six had already quit. The city also dismissed three other lawmakers who did not take money but were negligent with work duties, the report said.
Provincial authorities disqualified 56 delegates from Hengyang who were found to have paid more than $18 million in bribes to gain entry to the provincial body.
Teen hurt in Lebanon car bombing dies
BEIRUT - Lebanon’s state news agency said a teenager wounded in Friday’s car bombing in central Beirut has died, raising the death toll in the attack to seven.
The National News Agency said Mohammed Shaar died Saturday from severe wounds sustained in the blast, which also targeted prominent Lebanese politician Mohammed Chatah.
The 62-year-old Chatah, a critic of Syria and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, also was killed in the explosion.
Polio aid worker shot dead in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A health worker supervising a polio vaccination campaign was fatally shot and two others were wounded Saturday when gunmen opened fire at a hospital in northwestern Pakistan, officials said.
No one immediately took responsibility for the killing, but the Taliban, which accuses the United States of using the drive to eradicate polio in the country as a cover for spying, has threatened the lives of health workers who immunize children.
Pakistani officials said two gunmen riding a motorbike had opened fire at a government hospital in Matni, a suburb of Peshawar, the capital of restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Zahid Gul, who was overseeing the vaccination campaign, was killed and another man and a woman were wounded in the attack. The gunmen fled.
The Taliban’s resistance to polio vaccination hardened after the raid in May 2011 on Osama bin Laden’s compound in northern Pakistan, as revelations surfaced that the CIA had used a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, to run a vaccination campaign aided efforts to locate Bin Laden.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 12/29/2013