IN BRIEF (Page 11)

Iraq

Spate of bomb attacks claims 51

At least 51 people were killed and dozens wounded in a series of bombings and attacks across Baghdad on Wednesday, police and medical sources said, extending the worst wave of violence in Iraq in at least five years. In one of the worst incidents, a car bomb killed seven people and wounded 23 in Jisr Diyala in southeastern Baghdad, police and medics said.

Laos

At least 20 lives die in floods

Flash floods and heavy monsoon rains have battered Laos, killing at least 20 people, washing away roads and damaging crops, a UN official said on Wednesday. Rains along with typhoons that grazed Laos in June and July have affected about 116,000 people in seven of 17 provinces, leaving many without access to clean water, the United Nations said.

India

Housing block collapse kills 11

At least 11 people were killed and several more feared trapped when a four-story apartment block collapsed on Wednesday in a city in western India, officials said. The public housing block, located in the city of Vadodara, some 110 km from Ahmedabad, caved in before dawn, senior local government administrator Vinod Rao said.

The Philippines

Ex-police official turns himself in

A former Philippine national police chief surrendered to a court on Wednesday after he was charged with corruption involving millions of dollars. Avelino Razon was charged over the alleged misuse of 409.74 million pesos ($9.2 million) in Philippine National Police funds in 2007, when he was the force's director-general, a police statement said.

United States

Jury to consider death penalty

The military jury deciding the fate of US Army Major Nidal Hasan was slated on Wednesday to begin deliberations on whether he should be sentenced to death for the November 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. The same jury of 13 officers convicted Hasan of killing 13 people and wounding 31 others, most of them unarmed soldiers, at the central Texas base.

United Nations

Iran boosts nuclear capacity

Iran has installed about 1,000 advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges and is set to test them, according to a United Nations nuclear report. The development will likely worry Western powers hoping for a change of course under the country's new president. The International Atomic Energy Agency's quarterly report - the first since Hassan Rouhani won Iran's June presidential election - also said the nation had started making fuel assemblies for a reactor which the West fears could yield nuclear bomb material. Iran denies any such aims.

Reuters-AFP

(China Daily 08/29/2013 page11)