Xi urges utmost landslide rescue efforts
Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged sparing no efforts in searching for people left missing after a serious landslide in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
Xi Jinping said the government will also do its best to assist the families of victims.
The landslide, which took place on Wednesday morning due to continuous and severe downpours, has led to 26 deaths in a village in Dujiangyan City . Another 123 people are either missing or have lost contact with their families.
Nearly 1,000 rescuers have been sent to the site to search for survivors and evacuate trapped villagers.
A number of temporary shelters have been set up to receive the affected villagers and their families.
The State Council has sent an expert team to supervise the rescue work in the village.
Continuous rain kills 20 in NW China
Twenty people have been killed in rainstorms that have battered the city of Yan'an in northwest China's Shaanxi Province since Sunday.
Local authorities say rain-triggered landslides and house collapses have led to casualties in Baota District of Yan'an, Yanchuan and Ansai Counties.
Fifteen people have been injured while four others have gone missing.
The local government has sent rescuers and relief supplies to affected areas.
Chinese warships leave Russian port after joint naval drill
Chinese warships have left Russia's Far Eastern port of Vladivostok after taking part in a joint naval drill with Russia.
Directors of the drill from both sides, local overseas Chinese and nearly 100 soldiers attended a send-off ceremony at the Pier of Golden Horn Bay.
Seven Chinese military vessels and 12 vessels of Russia's Pacific Fleet took part in the week-long drill which started on July 5th.
During the exercise both navies conducted a range of drills including air-defense, maritime replenishment, countering submarine threats, joint escort, and rescuing of hijacked ships.
33 killed, 26 wounded in bomb attack at cafe in N. Iraq
At least 33 people have been killed and 26 others wounded in a bombing attack against a cafe in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk .
A police source says a suicide bomber blew himself up Friday evening inside the cafe in the Wahid Huzayran area in southwestern Kirkuk, some 250 km north of capital Baghdad.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the al-Qaida front in Iraq, in most cases, is responsible for such violent acts in the country.
Several killed in France train derailment
Up to eight people have been killed after a train derailed in a Paris suburb on Friday.
The intercity train, headed for the central French city of Limoges, derailed in Bretigny-sur-Orge in the south of Paris.
Emergency workers say there are several dead and several dozens were wounded in the accident.
Snowden seeks political asylum in Russia -- lawmaker
Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden says he plans to apply for political asylum in Russia.
A Russian parliamentarian said this after meeting the stranded whistleblower on Friday.
Several other participants in the closed-door talks in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport confirmed that Snowden said he was seeking political asylum in Russia and could not fly to Latin America.
The Russian lawmaker said Snowden has accepted the Kremlin's condition that he must stop damaging U.S. interests if he wants to stay in Russia.
Heathrow airport reopens after plane fire
Runways at London's Heathrow airport reopened late Friday afternoon, about an hour after fire on a plane that forced staff to close the airport.
The blaze on a parked Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet was spotted Friday afternoon. No passengers were on board at the time of the incident, and the plane was parking on a remote parking stand, therefore there were no casualties reported so far.
The plane was among the 50 Dreamliners worldwide grounded after malfunctions with their batteries. Flying from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, it was on the first commercial flight since the grounding.
Typhoon Soulik to land in Chinese mainland Saturday
Typhoon Soulik is expected to make a landfall in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces on the Chinese mainland between Saturday noon and late afternoon after it passes Taiwan according to the National Meteorological Center.
Influenced by Soulik, waters near Taiwain will experience strong winds.
And coastal areas of Fujian and Zhejiang and south of the East China Sea will be pummeled by strong winds.
China to tighten assessments for postgraduates
China's education authorities are planning to tighten the assessment of postgraduates as part of postgraduate education reform.
Postgrad students' academic papers will be more strictly assessed and examined.
Those who conduct unethical behavior when writing their dissertations may lose their degrees.
Those who teach students who commit academic fraud are also set to be punished.
Learning institutions' right to grant degrees will be revoked if multiple cases of academic fraud are spotted. |