World briefs

BRICS The leaders of five emerging market powers said at a summit yesterday (Macau time) that they gave final agreement to creating their own development bank worth USD100 billion that will have its headquarters in China. The first president of the New Development Bank will be from India and the position will rotate every five years among Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

CHINA An official source said 14 workers trapped when part of a railway tunnel collapsed two days earlier were alive and safe in the wreckage. The collapse happened Monday afternoon on a tunnel being constructed on a railway linking Yunnan province with neighboring Guangxi region. While the 14 were confirmed to be alive, one other trapped worker remained out of contact. The cause of the collapse was still under investigation.

CHINA The ancient Chinese town of Fenghuang has been submerged in water after severe storms battered the region.More than 50,000 people have been forced to leave their homes amid power cuts and flooding, BBC News reported. Fenghuang is more than 300 years old and is currently being considered for UNESCO World Heritage Status.

PHILIPPINES Typhoon Rammasun leaves at least 12 people dead and knocked-out power in many areas but spares Manila, and densely-populated northern provinces from being directly battered when its fierce wind shift slightly away.

MALAYSIA Long-haul budget airline AirAsia X has inked a deal to buy 50 Airbus A330neo planes as part of its regional expansion. The deal, signed at the Farnborough Airshow in London, is worth USD13.8 billion at the catalog price but airlines usually get a discount for bulk purchases.

JAPAN The Sendai nuclear plant won preliminary approval yesterday for meeting stringent post-Fukushima safety requirements, clearing a major hurdle toward becoming the first to restart under the tighter rules.

ISRAEL Israel resumes its heavy bombardment of Gaza and warns that Hamas “would pay the price” after the Islamic militant group rejected an Egyptian truce plan. President Shimon Peres admits moral concerns about the killing of civilians by Israeli air raids on Gaza, but argues Israel has little choice as long as the Islamic militants keep rocketing the country.

UKRAINE Separatist rebels in east Ukraine say they have retaken a village near the Russian border from government forces as they attempt to regain territory. Sergei Kavtaradze, a spokesman for a separatist group that calls itself the Donetsk People’s Republic, said one rebel militiaman was killed and another 15 injured in fighting in the village of Marinivka.

USA Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, a Philippines-born immigration activist who has lived in the U.S. illegally since he was a child, is released by U.S. Border Patrol agents on Tuesday after they detained him at a Texas airport.