AP, Beijing
It’s taken nearly seven years, but a Japanese leader is making an official visit to China for bilateral talks for the first time since late 2011.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived in Beijing on Thursday as both countries try to repair ties that have been riven by disputes over territory, military expansion in the Pacific and World War II history.
Indian politician injured in
airport attack
AP, Hyderabad
A popular regional politician was attacked Thursday by a young man while waiting to board a flight at an airport in southern India and suffered a minor cut in his arm, police said.
The youth asked to take a selfie with Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, chief of the YSR Congress party, and then took out a sharp object and attacked him in Visakhapatnam, a city in Andhra Pradesh state, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
5 dead in China coal mine accident
Xinhua, Jinan
Five miners have been killed, one has been rescued, while another 16 remain trapped after a rock burst at a coal mine in east China’s Shandong Province on Saturday, local authorities announced on Thursday. The accident occurred at around 11 p.m. Saturday at Longyun Coal Mining Co. Ltd. in Yuncheng County. A total of 22 people were trapped in the tunnel after coal fell at both ends from the rock burst.
Air pollution further worsens in Delhi
Xinhua, New Delhi
Air quality continued to worsen in the Indian capital for the fourth day in a row on Thursday ahead of Diwali, festival of lights, when pollution levels peak.
On Thursday morning, air quality index (AQI) dipped to 337, considered very poor category.
6 burned to death in Nigeria road accident
Xinhua, Abuja
Six people were burned to death in a road accident which involved two buses and a stationary truck on the Sagamu-Benin expressway in Nigeria’s southern region on Wednesday, according to the local road traffic police.
A total of 16 people were involved in the accident, 10 of them sustaining varying degrees of injury, the Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps based in the southwestern state of Ogun, said Thursday.
Father of two jailed in France for feeding them on Coca-Cola
AFP, Limoges
The father of two boys, aged three and four, has been jailed in France for feeding them nearly exclusively on Coca-Cola, the children’s lawyer said.
The father, who can “neither read, nor write, nor count, doesn’t realise the seriousness of the situation and spent all his welfare money on alcohol,” Carole Papon, a representative of the association French Victims 87, said Wednesday.
