World briefs

- Monday, August 1, 2016 - 8 years ago No Comments 1,649 Views

FILE - In this May 7, 2012 file photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Haiyang Shiyou oil rig, the first deep-water drilling rig developed in China by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, is pictured at 320 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Hong Kong in the South China Sea. Two state-owned companies, China General Nuclear Power Group and China National Nuclear Corp., have announced plans to develop floating nuclear reactors for use by oil rigs or island communities. If they succeed, the achievement would raise concern the reactors might be sent into harm’s way to support oil exploration in the South China Sea, where Beijing faces conflicting territorial claims by neighbors including Vietnam and the Philippines. (Jin Liangkuai/Xinhua News Agency via AP, File) NO SALES

CHINA Two state-owned companies plan to develop floating nuclear reactors, a technology engineers have been considering since the 1970s for use by oil rigs or island communities. Chinese media say plans call for the deployment of 20 reactors there, though neither developer has mentioned the area. More on p10

PHILIPPINE President Rodrigo Duterte calls off a five-day-old cease-fire after communist guerrillas killed a government militiaman and failed to declare their own truce by a Saturday deadline, in an early setback to his efforts to end one of Asia’s longest-raging rebellions.
Sirikit
THAILAND’s royal palace says that 83-year-old Queen Sirikit suffered a lung infection but her condition has improved. An announcement issued Saturday night says Sirikit was moved on July 24 from Bangkok’s Siriraj Hospital, where King Bhumibol Adulyajej has been living for most of the past few years, to Chulalongkorn Hospital for treatment of minor lung inflammation and blood infection.
India  Police in northern India say they have detained 15 suspects after a woman and her teenage daughter were gang-raped off a busy highway. According to the police, the attack took place Friday night near the town of Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh state after the car the women were traveling in was attacked by a gang of men with an iron rod.

The partial frame of a hot air balloon is visible above a crop field as investigators comb the wreckage of a crash Saturday, July 30, 2016, in Central Texas near Lockhart, Texas. Authorities say the accident caused a "significant loss of life." (Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

USA At least 16 people died in the hot air balloon crash in Central Texas, the National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday, adding that investigators are still trying to determine the exact number of passengers and what caused the accident. It’s apparently the worst such disaster in U.S. history, and one of the worst ever in the world.

Somalia Violence

SOMALIA Extremists attacked a heavily fortified police center in the capital yesterday, killing at least five people before security forces ended the assault, police said. Four attackers, including two suicide bombers, were also killed in the attack suspected to be by the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, said police Capt. Mohamed Hussein.

TUNISIA’s parliament passed a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Habib Essid on Saturday, effectively disbanding the government of the U.S.-trained agricultural economist. The no-confidence motion was passed by 118 votes, easily crossing the country’s 109-vote threshold after a debate that stretched late into the night.

EU It seems that the strong start to the year was another false dawn for the eurozone economy and that the European Central Bank will have more to do in the months ahead to shore up growth. New figures released Friday confirmed that the Eurozone suffered a sizeable slowdown in the second quarter of the year despite a number of stimulus measures that the European Central Bank has thrown at it.

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