Maoist rebels kill 6 cops

BANGALORE:

Six policemen were killed and four injured in a bomb attack early on Friday by Maoist rebels in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, police said. The policemen were attacked while they were asleep inside the premises of a school at Tumkur district, 140 km southwest of Bangalore, after carrying out search operations for Maoist rebels, a police official said. — AFP

Natwar to visit Pak, Kabul

NEW DELHI:

Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh embarks next week on a rare trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan seeking to advance a stuttering peace process with Islamabad and bolster growing ties with Kabul, analysts said. Singh will meet President Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah on Tuesday before flying south the same day for the first bilateral visit by an Indian foreign minister to Pakistan in more than 15 years, an official said. The veteran minister is expected to announce steps to try to infuse greater momentum into the two-year peace process. — AFP

Factory accident kills 10

BEIJING:

Ten people were killed in China when molten iron leaked from the bottom of a smelting furnace and sparked a steel factory explosion, the government said on Friday. Twenty-four people were working in the Zhaoxin Metallurgical Ltd. steel factory in northern China’s Shanxi province when the accident occurred on Wednesday, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Seven people were killed instantly and three died later in the hospital, Xinhua said, citing officials from Yicheng county where the accident occurred. Six people remained hospitalised on Friday and the accident was under investigation, the report said. — AP

Scribe hurt in blast dies

DHAKA:

A Bangladeshi journalist who was seriously wounded in a bomb blast last week died on Friday, a military spokesman said. Sheikh Belaluddin, a correspondent with daily Sangram newspaper, died of heart failure at the Combined Military Hospital in the capital Dhaka, said Lt Col Nazrul Islam. Belaluddin and three other reporters were wounded in a February 5 bomb explosion at a press club in Khulna — AP

Shan leaders detained

YANGON:

Two political leaders in Myanmar from the Shan ethnic minority have been detained, relatives said on Friday. Chairman Khun Htun Oo of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy and General Secretary Sai Nyunt Lwin were taken from their homes in Yangon on Wednesday by police, said family members who asked not to be identified. “They were told that authorities want to have a discussion with them, and each was allowed to take two pairs of clothing,” said a relative of one of the detained men. “I hope this will be temporary.” — AP

Dozens die of cold

KABUL:

At least 67 Afghans, mainly children, have died from freezing conditions as the war-battered country faces its coldest winter after years of droughts, an official said on Friday. Most of the victims are children in rural areas as well as refugee camps in the capital Kabul, public health minister Mohammad Amin Fatemi told AFP. “We have two types of reports — one unconfirmed reports from the local authorities which is quite large — up to hundreds,” he said. “And we have confirmed reports — 67 children and mothers have died of cold weather”. He said that 39 of the casualties were reported from the Karwar district in Logar province, south of Kabul, while others were in remote villages. — AFP

Gasoline pipeline bombed

MULTAN:

A small section of a state-owned gasoline pipeline exploded in a remote tribal region of Pakistan on Friday, and a militant group claimed responsibility. Police said there were no casualties. Hours after the blast, Mir Azad Baluch, who often speaks for the Baluchistan Liberation Army nationalist group, claimed responsibility for attacking the pipeline with a bomb in Dera Ghazi Khan, a town about 125 km of Multan, a main city in eastern Punjab province. — AP