QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I just took a small loop. I didn’t drive for a long way, but it was fine.”
May Al Sawyan, a 32-year-old mother of two in Saudi Arabia, who joined other women in defying a ban on driving by going to the grocery store and back Saturday Article, this page
Indian flood toll at least 39; crops ruined
NEW DELHI - Days of torrential rains have unleashed floods in southeast India that have killed dozens of people and forced the evacuation of more than 70,000 others from hundreds of low-lying villages.
As of Saturday, 39 people had died in the flood-ravaged states of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa since the rains began Monday, according to officials quoted by the Press Trust of India.
Hundreds of villages were inundated and crops were being ruined in the so-called Rice Bowl of India. Railway services have been suspended along routes where tracks were submerged or damaged.
Residents of India’s high-tech hub of Hyderabad were wading through knee-deep water surging through the streets.
The local Disaster Management Department said relief workers in boats and helicopters were working to help or rescue hundreds of thousands stranded by floods.
Both Andhra Pradesh and Orissa were hit two weeks ago by a powerful cyclone that prompted authorities to evacuate nearly 1 million people.
Czech election leaves no majority party
PRAGUE - A special parliamentary election held in the Czech Republic left no party with a majority Saturday, which stands to lead to protracted negotiations aimed at forming a coalition government.
The two-day election was called to end a political crisis triggered by the center-right government’s collapse in a whirlwind of allegations about corruption and marital infidelity.
With all the votes counted by the Czech Statistics Office, the left-wing Social Democrats won 20.45 percent, or 50 seats, in the 200-seat lower house of Parliament. The party’s ally, the communists, finished third, receiving 14.91 percent of the vote, or 33 seats.
“The result is not what we expected,” Bohuslav Sobotka, the chairman of the Social Democrats, said, referring to the worst election result for his party since 1993, when Czechoslovakia split into two countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
In the republic, Parliament’s lower house dominates the legislative process, and the leader of its strongest party is generally asked by the president to try to form a new government, but that is not expected to be easy this time.
The new centrist ANO (YES) movement, which campaigned on an anti-corruption ticket, finished in a surprisingly strong second place, with 18.65 percent, or 47 seats.
Iran hangs 16 after border guards killed
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran hanged 16 “rebels” of an unspecified armed group on Saturday in retaliation for the deaths of 14 border guards in clashes near the frontier with Pakistan, a semiofficial news agency reported.
The executions took place hours after the rebels ambushed the border guards near the town of Saravan in southeast Iran, Fars agency quoted local judicial official Mohammad Marzieh as saying.
State TV said rebels had crossed the border from Pakistan and fled back there after the clash. The border in the remote region is porous, and groups can easily move back and forth.
The report provided few other details of the hangings.
It did not mention a trial, suggesting the prisoners may already have been convicted and sentenced to death, and their executions moved up after the ambush.
Mother, brother to visit Chinese activist
BEIJING - Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng’s mother and oldest brother have been granted visas to visit Chen in the U.S., where he has lived since shortly after escaping house arrest in China last year.
The brother, Chen Guangfu, said Saturday that he and his mother, Wang Jinxiang, were given the visas Thursday and will soon travel to New York, where Chen Guangcheng lives with his wife and two children.
“Mom has always wanted to see Guangcheng, but it is not likely for him to return home for the time being. I am fulfilling her wish,” Chen Guangfu said of his mother, who is about 80 years old.
The activist, who is blind, sparked a diplomatic crisis in April 2012 when he escaped house arrest in his rural town in east China’s Shandong province and sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Chinese officials later let him move to the U.S.
Front Section, Pages 9 on 10/27/2013