A roundup of today's other world news in brief:
Landslides kill 22 in Pakistan after heavy rain
ISLAMABAD- Landslides killed 22 and destroyed houses in a remote part of northwest Pakistan yesterday, a police official said.
The landslides, triggered by heavy overnight rain, also blocked a 2km (1.25 mile) stretch of the Karakoram highway that links Pakistan to China as it passes through the Kohistan region of the northwest frontier province.
Women and children were among the dead in the stricken villages. Thirteen people were injured, five critically.
- (Reuters)
Western US suffers flash fires
SAN FRANCISCO- Fires raged yesterday across the western US as firefighters scrambled to prevent flames from spreading across terrain thick with tinder, turned bone dry by hot weather.
California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana each reported wildfires of varying severity amid a heat wave blanketing the western United States.
- (Reuters).
Arab peace plan set to restart
JERUSALEM- Arab League members Egypt and Jordan have proposed sending envoys to Israel this week for long-delayed talks on an Arab peace initiative, Israeli officials said yesterday.
The visit by the Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers would be the first by the Arab League working group, set up in April to hold contacts with Israel over the initiative. Egyptian sources said it could happen as early as Thursday.
- (Reuters)
Atomic watchdog to visit N Korea
VIENNA- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is poised to send a team to North Korea this week to verify the shutdown of its atom bomb project after IAEA governors give an expected go-ahead today, diplomats said. It will be the first mission by UN nuclear watchdog monitors since North Korea expelled the agency's inspectors in 2002 after the US presented evidence it said pointed to a covert uranium enrichment.
- (Reuters)