Other world stories in brief
More than 120 dead, missing in Java floods
MOGOL, Indonesia- Landslides and floods triggered by heavy rain have left more than 120 people dead or missing on Indonesia's Java island, as rescuers struggled yesterday to pull out bodies buried under thick mud.
Officials said thousands of people have been left homeless after their houses were submerged by floods or buried by landslides in villages near the Bengawan Solo river, which lies about 500km from the capital, Jakarta. - (Reuters)
Kenya president leading in election
NAIROBI- Kenya's president Mwai Kibaki was leading yesterday's presidential election with 47.3 per cent of the vote versus 42.8 for opposition leader Raila Odinga, according to an early exit poll by a local independent observer group.
The Institute for Education in Democracy (IED), a respected non-governmental organisation, gave the early figures based on a sample of 271 polling stations out of a total 27,000. - (Reuters)
16 Sudan rebels take oath of office
KHARTOUM- Sixteen ministers from Sudan's former southern rebels took the oath of office before President Omar Hassan al-Bashir yesterday, rejoining the national government and formally ending a crippling political crisis.
The former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) walked out of the coalition government in October complaining its northern partners did not want to implement the 2005 peace deal which ended Sudan's north-south civil war - Africa's longest. - (Reuters)
Man held after policeman's death
LONDON- A man in his 30s has been arrested for murder after a police officer died attending a domestic incident in northwest London, Scotland Yard said yesterday.
The death happened when police were called to a house in Wembley early on Wednesday evening. A man was initially arrested for assaulting a police officer but a different officer subsequently collapsed outside the address.
The Daily Mirror said the man had been pushed downstairs while trying to break up a family row. He was taken to hospital in north London where he was pronounced dead. - (Reuters)
Olmert, Abbas in talks over impasse
JERUSALEM- Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas met yesterday to try to end an impasse over Jewish settlement building that has paralysed month-old peace talks.
The meeting, at Mr Olmert's Jerusalem residence, was the first between the leaders since last month's peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, where they set the goal of reaching a statehood agreement before US president George Bush leaves office in January 2009. - (Reuters)
Serial Nobel prize nominee dies
TALLINN- Jaan Kross, the most translated writer from the Baltic state of Estonia and often nominated for the Nobel prize for literature, died yesterday aged 87, his family said.
Kross's name appeared almost every year as one of the nominees for the literature prize, but the award eluded him. - (Reuters)
Ripper victim's daughter dead
LONDON- The daughter of the Yorkshire Ripper's first murder victim has killed herself, it has been revealed.
Sonia Newlands (39) was found dead at her home in Leeds. Her mother, Wilma McCann, was the first of 13 women to be killed by Peter Sutcliffe. - (PA)