Power plant accident in Russia kills 8, scores missing.

MOSCOW : water pipes ruptured at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant early Monday causing flooding that killed at least eight people and left scores missing, officials said.

The accident caused major power distruption in Siberia. Officials said 8 plant workers were killed and 14 injured when a sudden change in water pressure caused the rupture at the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant in the Khakassia region. Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu and Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko are heading to the scene to take personal control of the crisis. - AFP

South Korean firm to open major dog cloning centre

SEOUL : A South Korean biotechnology firm will early next year open a centre capable eventually of producing up to 1,000 cloned dogs annually, a company executive said Friday.

"We need this new facility to turn dog cloning services into a full-fledged busines," Cho Seong-Ryul, director of RNL Bio, told AFP.

The centre in Yongin city south of Seoul will cost some five million dollars and focus on cloning pets, working dogs and endangered species including wolves.

Taiwan scrambles to rescue 700 in landslide villages as death toll reaches 66

Taiwan Wednesday began airlifting to safety more than 700 people found alive in a trio of villages flattened by muddy landslides, as the island's death toll from Typhoon Morakot hit 66. The military launched the helicopter operation in the battered island's south after the region was hit by its worst flooding in half a century, inundating entire villages in water and mud and cutting off all access by road. Officials are unable to confirm how many people had been buried or killed by the landslide in Hsiaolin and in two other remote villages nearby. - AFP

70 dead as typhoons pound East Asia

CHISHAN, Taiwan - Typhoons pummelling East Asia have killed at least 70 people, with rescuers in Taiwan battling to find survivors of a mudslide that may have buried about 100 villagers, officials said Tuesday.

A total of 50 people were confirmed dead in Taiwan and 58 were listed as missing, not counting the mudslide victims, after Typhoon Morakot unleashed the island's worst flooding in half a century over the weekend.

Plane carrying 13, missing over PNG

Port Moresby - A small passenger plane carrying 13 people including nine Australians went missing over Papua New Guinea Tuesday and was feared to have crashed, the airline and Australian officials said.

The 20-seater Twin Otter craft dissapeared at 10:53am (0053 GMT) enroute to popular tourist destination Kokoda after taking off from the South Pacific nation's capital Port Moresby.

100 feared buried alive, 41 dead in typhoon-hit Taiwan

A mudslide engulfed a mountain village in southern Taiwan leaving 100 people feared buried alive, officials said Tuesday, as the confirmed death toll from Typhoon Morakot on the island hit 41.

Taiwan's worst flooding in half a century had left another 62 people missing, not counting the disaster in the remote village of Hsiaolin. tales of individual heroism emerged, as rescue missions moved into full swing across Taiwan with authorities rushing out helicopters to remote areas cut off by fallen bridges or raging rivers. - AFP

Strong quakes hit Japan, India, and Indonesia; Tsunami warnings canceled

Powerful earthquakes just over 10 minutes apart rattled Japan and India Tuesday, triggering panic on fears of a tsunami in the Andaman Islands and injuring dozens of people southwest of Tokyo. The unrelated quakes struck in the early hours, shutting down bullet train services in the affected region of Japan and provoking a landslide with the nation already braced for more damage from Typhoon Etau.

At least 43 people were injured, mostly by falling objects, with two in a serious condition, said a Shizuoka prefecture official. - AFP

31 dead as typhoons hit East Asia

Taipei - At least 31 people were known to have died and scores more were reported missing Monday after typhoons battered East Asia, as parts of the region experienced their worst weather in half a century.

Almost half of those killed were in Taiwan when Typhoon Morakot slammed into the island, dumping a record 2.5 metres of rain at the weekend.

Wreckage from missing plane found in Indonesia

Wreckage from a plane that went missing over Indonesia's rugged Papua region with 16 people on board was found Tuesday in dense jungle, an airline executive said. Search and rescue teams are trying to land in the area by helicopter but there is little hope any passengers or crew, all Indonesians, will be found alive.

An airborne search team saw the wreckage near Ampisibil village in Bintang Mountains Regency at 2100 GMT, at a height of 2,850 metres. The site of the crash is about 37km south of Oksibil. - AFP

Beijing's smog is back year after Olympics

One year after staging a mostly pollution-free Olympics, Beijing has seen its skies shrouded in haze again, highlighting what observers call a mixed Olympic legacy on the environment.

An air quality index published on social networking site Twitter by the US embassy has catalogued near-daily "unhealthy" readings in recent months. Just last week, as the anniversary neared, the embassy's US-standard readings spiked to "hazardous" as a familiar choking pall settled on the city. - AFP

India registers first H1N1 flu death

MUMBAI : India on Monday registered its first H1N1 flu death after a 14-year-old girl in the western city of Pune died from the disease, media reports said.

The teenager was admitted to a private hospital on July 27, six days after initially feeling unwell and consulting doctors. She was put on an intensive care ward on July 29 and confirmed to have H1N1 flu the following day.

The Press Trust of India news agency said the student had been given the anti-viral drug Oseltamivir. - AFP

Hundreds sickened by chemical plant in China's Hunan province

BEIJING : More than 500 people have been sickened by pollution from a chemical plant in central China that has also been blamed for two deaths, state media reported on Monday.

Health checks on nearly 3,000 people living near the plant in Liuyang country, Hunan province, revealed 509 had excessive levels of cadmium, a toxic heavy metal, Xinhua news agency said. The authorities have suspended 2 local environmental officials and detained the head of the plant following a protest last week by 1,000 residents. - AFP

Aussie radio show pulled after live teen rape claim

SYDNEY : An Australian radio show was yanked off the air on Monday after causing outrage when a teenage girl was hooked up to a lie detector and forced to admit that she was raped at the age of 12.

Sydney radio station 2Day FM said the "Kyle and Jackie O Show" that featured the stunt had been suspended indefinitely pending a review. One of the presenters, Kyle Sandilands, was also kicked off the popular "Australian Idol" show, with network chiefs saying he didn't fit its family focus.

Malaysian court charges 29 over massive weekend protest

Kuala Lumpur : 29 people were charged on Monday by a Malaysian court after taking part in a massive weekend protest against internal security laws that saw 589 people arrested.

In the biggest demonstration in Malaysia in nearly two years, police used tear gas and water cannon on Saturday to disperse thousands of people calling for the abolition of laws that allow for detention without trial. All 29 pleaded not guilty and were released on bail. If convicted, they could be jailed for between one and three years.

Lawsuit blames KFC for crippled girl's illness

An Australian girl's family launched a multi-million dollar lawsuit Monday against fast food giant KFC, claiming she was left brain damaged and crippled after eating one of their snacks.

Lawyers for Monika Samaan's family said she contracted salmonella after eating a chicken twister wrap bought at a KFC branch in 2005. KFC denies the claim. Barrister Anthony Bartley said former KFC employees would testify that if the store was busy, chicken that had been dropped on the floor was simply picked up and served to customers. - AFP

Imelda Marcos seeks peace as Philippines mourns Aquino

MANILA : Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos said Monday she wanted a reconciliation with the family of Corazon Aquino, as the ex-president's coffin was taken on a solemn procession through Manila.

Aquino, whose husband was assassinated by the forces of dictator Ferdinand Marcos after returning home from exile in 1983, died at the weekend following a battle with cancer.

North Korea silent on South's boat crew

SEOUL : North Korea was silent Monday on South Korea's renewed call for the release of a fishing boat and four crew members which strayed across the maritime border four days ago.

"The North Korean side simply replied that the investigation was underway," said unification ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-Joo, after maritime authorities of the two countries communicated with each other early Monday.

Chinese police arrest another 319 in Xinjiang probe

Police in the northwest Chinese region of Xinjiang have arrested hundreds of people in connection with disturbances that left at least 197 people dead, State media reported Sunday.

Citing a police announcement in Urumqi, the regional capital that was the epicentre of the unrest on July 5, the Xinhua news agency said 319 people had been detained.

Police have previously confirmed the detentions of over 1,600 people, according to earlier state media reports. - AFP

China suspends officials after pollution protest

Authorities in central China have suspended two officials and detained the head of a chemical plant after villagers protested at pollution that had allegedly killed 2 people, state media said Sunday.

The suspension Saturday of the chief and one deputy chief of Liuyang country's enviromental protection department came after about 1,000 people took to the streets last week over the plant, the Xinhua news agency reported. - AFP

Lawyers still hope Suu Kyi will be freed

Lawyers for Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Sunday they still hoped she would be "freed unconditionally", despite widespread fears of a guilty verdict in her prolonged prison trial.

A verdict had been expected on Friday but judges postponed their pronouncement until August 11, saying they needed time to review the case. "We hope that she will be freed unconditionally," said Nyan Win, one of Suu Kyi's lawyers and a spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD). - AFP

North Korea agrees to streamline border-crossing

North Korea has agreed to streamline rules for South Korean visitors crossing the border to visit a Seoul-funded joint industrial site, officials here said Sunday. The North's move stands in contrast to its stance since 2008, which has seen the communist regime toughening its control on South Koreans travelling to Kaesong estate.

The South's Kaesong Industrial Complex Management Commitee said Sunday visitors would no longer need to provide anything more than ID cards and travel permits. - AFP

Plane carrying 16 goes missing in Indonesia

A plane carrying 16 people went missing in a mountainous area of Indonesia's restive Papua province on Sunday, officials said. The Merpati Airlines plane carrying 13 passengers and three crew was flying from Jayapura to Oksibil town when it lost contact with air traffic control, transport safety chief Herry Bhakti Singayuda told AFP.

"We're still trying to locate it," he said. District mountain transport head Dumaroni suggested that weather may have been a factor, adding that everyone on board the plane was Indonesian. - AFP

6.4-magnitude quake strikes eastern Indonesia

A strong 6.4-magnitude quake struck Indonesia's remote West Papua Sunday, the country's geophysics agency said.

The quake struck at 3:54pm (0854 GMT) with an epicentre 127 kilometres (79 miles) northwest of the town of Manokwari in West Papua, the Jakarta Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said. It was measured at a depth of 12 kilometres.

There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. - AFP

China town sealed off after pneumonic plague kills one

A town in a Tibetan area in northwest China has been sealed off after one of its residents died from pneumonic plague, the local government said on Sunday.

Ziketan town in Qinghai province was put under collective quarantine Saturday when laboratory tests showed it had been struck by the highly virulent disease, the Qinghai health bureau said in a statement.

A 32-year-old herdsman had died from the plague, while 11 others had been diagnosed with it, according to the statement. - AFP

Malaysia criticised over protest crackdown

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia's government faced criticism Sunday for arresting hundreds of people and using tear gas and water cannon to break up a protest against laws that allow detention without trial.

More than 60 of the 589 people detained in Saturday's protest, which saw at least 15,000 people massing in chaotic scenes in downtown Kuala Lumpur, were still in custody Sunday according to media reports and lawyers.

Thousands mourn ex-Philippine president Aquino

Manila - Thousands of mourners paid their final respects to former Philippine President Corazon Aquino Sunday, lining up to file past her coffin in silent tribute to the "People Power" democracy leader.

Aquino, who died at the age of 76 on Saturday after a long battle with colon cancer, led millions of Filipinos in protests against dictator Ferdinand Marcos in a popular revolt in 1986, before taking over as president.