A round-up of today's other stories in brief
More may be buried in rubble of hall
KATOWICE - More people may be buried in the rubble of a collapsed roof that killed at least 63 people last weekend in Poland's deadliest construction accident, prosecutors said yesterday.
The prosecutors are investigating if human error or neglect led to the roof caving in during an international show of racing pigeons in a modern, football pitch-sized exhibition hall in the southern city of Chorzow.
The tragedy, which occasioned three days of national mourning ending yesterday, injured 140 and left eight foreigners among the dead. - (Reuters).
Torrential rains kill three in Rio
RIO DE JANEIRO - Three people died in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday when torrential rains destroyed their houses, bringing to 16 the number of people killed over the past five days.
Rio's state civil defence chief Carlos Alberto de Carvalho said an additional four people were missing, including two children, and rescue workers in Brazil's second-biggest city were inspecting buildings to assess the risk of collapse.
Civil defence will remain on alert at least until tomorrow because of a threat of more rainstorms, he said. - (Reuters)
Nepal protests as 19 troops killed
KATHMANDU - Street protests erupted in Kathmandu yesterday on the first anniversary of King Gyanendra's seizing of power despite the monarch promising to hold national polls by 2007.
The protests came after Maoist rebels killed 19 police and soldiers in an overnight raid on Palpa town which targeted army barracks, police posts and government buildings.
The army said dozens of soldiers and government officials, including the district administrator, were missing following the raid on the town, 300 kms west of Kathmandu. - (Reuters)
Protest at female emperor plan
TOKYO - More than 1,000 people met in Tokyo yesterday to protest at a proposed law change that would allow women and their children to inherit the Japanese emperor's throne.
The plan, which would overturn the male-only tradition of one of the world's oldest monarchies, was put forward by an advisory panel to prime minister Junichiro Koizumi as a way of resolving a looming succession crisis in the imperial household.- (Reuters)
Fatal explosions due to firecracker BEIJING - A firecracker thrown by a child into a Chinese fireworks storehouse was the trigger behind a series of explosions that killed 36 people celebrating the first day of the Lunar New Year.
Nearly 50 people, many attending a temple fair, were injured in the blasts on Sunday in the town of Linqi in central Henan province. - (Reuters)
Dancer Moira Shearer dies
The ballet dancer and actress Moira Shearer has died, her husband said yesterday.
Ludovic Kennedy, who married the flame-haired star of The Red Shoes in 1950, said she died at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford yesterday.
He said she had been gradually becoming weaker since her 80th birthday in mid-January. - (PA)
Chemical tanker sinks in Channel
LONDON - A chemical tanker, severely damaged in a collision with another ship in the Channel between France and Britain, has sunk but its cargo poses no pollution danger, the UK coastguard said yesterday.
The 8,131-tonne Ece, carrying phosphoric acid, sank 20 miles west of the island of Guernsey. - (Reuters)