Today's other stories in brief
Hopes fade for 800 Filipino ferry victims
PHILIPPINES:Rescuers halted efforts last night to find nearly 800 people missing from a capsized ferry in the Philippines as darkness fell and large swells prevented divers from drilling holes into the doomed vessel.
Many passengers were feared trapped inside the Princess of Stars after a handful of survivors said people were still on board when the ship sank off the central island of Sibuyan in waves as big as houses during Saturday's typhoon.
But officials held little hope of finding people alive in airpockets on the ferry. The coastguard said divers would cut open the 23,824-tonne vessel today after rescue efforts were halted for the night. - (Reuters)
55 Taliban insurgents killed
AFGHANISTAN: US-led coalition troops killed some 55 Taliban insurgents who ambushed them in southeastern Afghanistan, close to the Pakistan border, the US military said yesterday.
Taliban insurgents ambushed the coalition forces on Friday, a US military statement said.
- (Reuters)
N Korea to issue nuclear report
JAPAN:North Korea will hand over a long-delayed report of its nuclear activities on June 26th in a step toward disarmament, Kyodo news agency said, citing sources close to six-party talks on the issue.
In response, the US will begin the process of removing Pyongyang from a list of nations Washington sees as sponsors of terrorism, the report said, a move that would ease trade sanctions. - (Reuters)
Council workers in UK to strike
BRITAIN: About 600,000 British local government workers have voted to strike over pay, public sector union Unison said yesterday, adding to fears that higher living costs may spark a hard-to-control inflationary spiral.
Unison said workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland voted by 55 per cent to 45 per cent for a plan of sustained strikes after rejecting a 2.45 per cent pay offer. - (Reuters)
Russia to reduce size of army
RUSSIA: Russia plans to cut its army to one million people by 2013, Russian defence minister Anatoly Serdyukov said yesterday.
"We propose to have an army of one million within four or five years, that is by 2013," Russian media quoted Mr Serdyukov as telling reporters after meeting President Dmitry Medvedev.
Russian officials had earlier put the number of army servicemen at 1.13m at the end of 2007. - (Reuters)
Sharif barred by Pakistani court
PAKISTAN: A Pakistani court disqualified former prime minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday from contesting a byelection for a seat in the national assembly later this week, deepening political uncertainty in the country.
Mr Sharif was barred from running in a general election in February because he had been convicted for the 1999 hijacking of then army chief Pervez Musharraf's aircraft.
- (Reuters)
Emergency call data missing
BRITAIN:Details of almost 900,000 emergency calls to the ambulance service went missing while in transit, Scotland's ambulance service said yesterday.
The records of 894,629 calls made from February 2006 to a response centre in Paisley were stored on a portable hard drive being transported by courier TNT. The hard drive was sent on June 9th to MIS Emergency Services in Manchester but did not arrive. - (Reuters)