World briefs

PHILIPPINES Fourteen people, mostly college students on a camping trip, were killed yesterday when the brakes on their chartered bus apparently failed on a steep downhill road in Rizal province east of Manila and it smashed into an electric post and a tree. About 45 others were injured, many seriously. The dead included the driver and a professor.

PHILIPPINES Gunmen attacked a Vietnamese cargo ship off the Philippines’ southern tip, killing a Vietnamese crewman and abducting six others including the vessel’s captain, the ship’s owner said.

HONG KONG Former chief executive Donald Tsang became HK’s first leader to spend a night in custody, as he was remanded ahead of sentencing today. Tsang faces jail for misconduct in office. Donald Tsang, 72, “swapped his suit and trademark bow tie for a prison jumpsuit last night after a judge sent him to the maximum-security Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre,” scmp.com reported. At around 9:25pm, he was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s custodial ward, in chains, after complaining of feeling unwell.

NORTH KOREA relies on its farmers to squeeze absolutely all they can out of every harvest. It’s a tall order in a country with 25 million mouths to feed that is mostly mountains, hamstrung by international trade sanctions and, beyond a handful of showcase cooperatives, hard-pressed to modernize its agricultural sector.

PAKISTAN An avalanche has killed seven people in northern Pakistan. Officials with the provincial disaster management department, say another eight people were injured. Those people have been retrieved from a building buried by the avalanche Sunday near Lowari Tunnel in Upper District. Officials say there could be additional victims under the debris.

GERMANY’s foreign ministry says the case of a newspaper correspondent detained in Turkey is of “greatest importance” for Berlin. The ministry is in contact with the Welt daily and its correspondent Deniz Yucel (pictured). Yucel, who has both Turkish and German citizenship, was taken into custody last week after presenting himself at a police station in Istanbul for questioning in connection with his reporting on a hacking case .

UK Uber’s chief executive ordered an urgent investigation into a sexual harassment claim made by a female engineer who alleged her prospects at the company evaporated after she complained about advances from her boss. Travis Kalanick responded on Twitter to an open statement by Susan Fowler Rigetti about her year at the ride-hailing app. “What’s described here is abhorrent & against everything we believe in,” Kalanick tweeted yesterday.