30 hurt in mishap

SRINAGAR: Over 30 people were injured on Friday in Jammu and Kashmir when the bus they were travelling in overturned, police here said. Police said the bus met with the accident when its driver lost control. — HNS

16 die of heat

BHUBANESWAR: Around 16 people died of heat stroke in Orissa with temperatures in some places crossing 46 degrees Celsius. According to an officer on special duty in the revenue control room Srikanta Tarai, the government had reports of 100 deaths from various sources.

—HNS

BJP leader shot at

AHMEDABAD: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Bhavin Sheth was shot at on Friday while taking a walk in Gujarat’s hill town of Saputara. He escaped unhurt, police said. The attackers fled the scene.— HNS

Anchor shot dead

KABUL: Reporters Without Borders, an international media rights group, has condemned the murder of Shaima Rezayee, 24, a former presenter of a controversial Afghan television music show whom police suspect was slain by her own brothers, officials said Friday. Rezayee was shot in the head at her Kabul home on Wednesday. — AP

Emergency landing

MUMBAI: A Paris-bound Air-India plane with 428 passengers and crew aboard made a safe emergency landing at Mumbai airport Friday after developing a technical problem, an Air-India spokesman said. “The plane has landed,” Air-India spokesman Jitendra Bhargava told AFP. “All the passengers are safe.” — AFP

Ferry mishap toll 133

MANIKGANJ: The death toll from three ferry disasters in the past week in Bangladesh increased to 133 on Friday as hope faded for 187 people still missing, police and officials said. Nine more bodies recovered in the Padma River were all from the ML Raipura, a double-deck ferry that went down during a storm Tuesday with 250 people on board. — AP

East Timor anniv

DILI: East Timor’s president marked the tiny country’s third anniversary on Friday with a somber speech warning that patience and sacrifice are still needed in the face of a moribund economy, stifling poverty and a declining UN presence. — AP

Soldiers killed in J&K

JAMMU: Islamic militants lobbed a grenade at an army patrol in India’s portion of Kashmir on Friday, killing four soldiers, an army spokesman said. Three soldiers and an army major were killed instantly. — AP

Dredging excercise

BANGALORE: India will soon start dredging a new 167-kilometer-long sea channel in southern India so ships following the Indian coastline don’t have to make a detour around Sri Lanka, a government official said on Friday. The Sethusamudram project, which will cost US$550 million, was approved on Thursday by the federal cabinet. — AP

JAKARTA: Muslim radicals supported by elements in the security forces were likely responsible

for an attack earlier this week in the troubled Maluku islands in which 8 people — including five paramilitary policemen — died, police said on Friday. — AP

Mine disaster toll

CHENGDE: Two bodies were found on Friday in an illegally-operating coal mine in northern China that was hit by a gas explosion, while rescuers kept searching for 49 miners still missing. Police guarded the entrance to the Nuanerhe mine, near Chengde city in Hebei province, where scores of relatives were anxiously awaiting news on those missing since the blast struck in the early hour of Thursday. — AFP