AP, Mexico
The death toll from an explosion that ripped through a petrochemical plant on Mexico’s southern Gulf coast is now 24, state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos reported.
Pemex raised the toll late Thursday from the 13 fatalities previously known and said eight workers remained missing. It also said 19 people remained hospitalized, with 13 of them in serious condition.
In a statement, the company said 12 of the bodies had been identified and eight of them delivered to family members.
Yemen peace talks begin
in Kuwait
Reuters, Kuwait
Talks aimed at ending Yemen’s war opened in Kuwait on Thursday, with Kuwait’s top diplomat appealing to both sides to “turn war into peace” after more than a year of conflict which has killed more than 6,200 people and caused a humanitarian crisis.
Yemen’s foreign minister warned against high expectations from the U.N.-sponsored talks, which brought together the Houthi group and its General People’s Congress party allies with the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Obama to visit Hiroshima
AFP, Tokyo
President Barack Obama will go to the atom-bombed city of Hiroshima after a G7 summit in Japan late next month, the Nikkei business daily reported Friday, in what would be the first such visit by a sitting US leader.
Washington will “arrange with Japan his visit on May 27 when the G7 leaders’ summit wraps up,” the newspaper said in its online version, citing several US government officials it did not identify.
Mudslide kills at least 15 in India
AP, Gauhati
Torrential rains triggered a mudslide burying a labor camp in India’s remote northeast bordering China early Friday, killing at least 15 people, police said.
Rescuers were searching for two missing workers from the mountainous camp in Tawang, a tourist spot in Arunachal Pradesh state, said police officer Nabin Payeng. Tawang is a Buddhist mountain retreat.
