CHINA A shoe factory collapsed in eastern China during a weekend shift, killing at least 11 people and injuring more than 30, officials said yesterday. Three other people were missing in the collapse Saturday afternoon in the Zhejiang province city of Wenling, and nine people escaped. Rescuers pulled 42 people from the rubble and sent them to a hospital, where nine of them died, the Wenling city government said on its microblog. They pulled two bodies from the wreckage yesterday. The cause of the accident is under investigation.
CHINA A magnitude 6.5 earthquake that shook China’s far-western region of Xinjiang killed three people, injured 71 and collapsed thousands of houses, officials said Saturday. The quake hit Pishan county in the Hotan region of Xinjiang early Friday. Earlier reports on state media said that six people had died, but by Saturday the China Earthquake Administration gave the tally as three killed and 71 injured.
Nigeria A woman suicide bomber blew up in the midst of a crowded evangelical Christian church service in northeast Nigeria yesterday and killed at least five people, witnesses said. It is the latest bombing in a string of attacks blamed on Islamic extremist group Boko Haram that’s killed some 200 people in the past week.
IRAN U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are locked in negotiation with just two days left before their latest deadline for a comprehensive nuclear pact. Kerry and Zarif met for 1 ½ hours yesterday morning in Vienna before a short break. By early afternoon, they were in discussions again. World powers and Iran are hoping to clinch a deal by tomorrow, setting a decade of restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program and granting Iran significant relief from international sanctions.
BRAZIL-USA The U.S. National Security Agency monitored the phone numbers of top Brazilian officials, WikiLeaks said, less than a week after President Dilma Rousseff visited the U.S. to mend relations derailed by earlier spying accusations. The 29 phone numbers selected for “intensive interception” included those of Rousseff aides, members of Brazil’s finance ministry, diplomats and even the satellite phone on Rousseff’s private jet, WikiLeaks said in a report titled “Bugging Brazil” posted on Saturday.
UK Britain’s Princess Charlotte, the nine-week-old baby of Prince William and his wife Kate, is set to be christened at a church on Queen Elizabeth II’s country estate. The queen, her husband Prince Philip, Prince Charles and Kate’s family were to be among guests attending the event yesterday at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, near England’s eastern coast. The church is where Charlotte’s late grandmother, Princess Diana, was christened in 1961.
HAWAII A plane powered by the sun’s rays has landed in Hawaii after a record-breaking five-day journey across the Pacific Ocean from Japan. Pilot Andre Borschberg and his single-seat solar aircraft arrived Friday at Kalaeloa, a small airport outside Honolulu after taking off from Nagoya about 120 hours ago. His team says his trip broke the record for the world’s longest nonstop solo flight. The late U.S. adventurer Steve Fossett set the previous record of 76 hours.
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