A land mine exploded beneath a police vehicle in eastern India on Saturday, killing at least 15 officers, police said. Maoist rebels were suspected to have planted the mine on a road leading to Baniadih, a village in Jharkhand state, police said. They said the policemen were about to raid a village where rebels were believed to be hiding when the explosion occurred. The rebels, who claim to be inspired by Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, have been fighting for land and jobs for agricultural workers and the poor.
China: Child malnutrition admitted
Nearly one-third of children living in China’s poorest areas suffer from malnutrition, the government said Saturday, underscoring the country’s growing economic divide. Citing a report from the Beijing-based Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety, the official Xinhua News Agency said 29 percent of children younger than 5 and living in poverty-stricken regions of southwestern China’s Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, and in Qinghai in the northwest, were malnourished. By contrast, it said, child malnutrition in urban areas stood at only 1 percent.
Nigeria: Scammed funds returned
Nigeria returned $4.5 million seized from scammers to an 86-year-old Chinese woman in September, the West African country’s financial crimes agency said Saturday. A Nigerian fraud ring swindled Juliana Ching of Hong Kong through false promises that she and her daughter would benefit from a contract supposedly offered by the state-owned Nigerian oil company, a spokesman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said. Nigeria has earned global notoriety as a base for criminals arranging such scams.
Turkey: Bird flu infests flock
Turkey’s agriculture minister confirmed the country’s first cases of bird flu on Saturday and ordered the destruction of all birds in the village where it was detected to prevent the disease from spreading, the Anatolia news agency said. Military police have also set up roadblocks at the village near Balikesir in western Turkey, 250 miles from Istanbul. The officers checked vehicles to make certain no birds were going in or out. A reported 2,000 birds belonged to a turkey farmer died.
Italy: Bedbugs bite passengers
After angry protests about bedbugs and ticks, Italy’s state railway said Saturday that it is pulling 508 train cars out of circulation. On Friday, passengers stormed off a train crawling with bedbugs during a stop in Genoa on the Nice-to-Naples overnight run, and police had to be called to restore calm. Trains won’t be allowed to leave stations if “they don’t reach a certain standard of cleaning,” the railways said.
From Herald news services
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
