Fisherman battles tiger

DHAKA: A Bangladeshi fisherman battled with a tiger for 15 minutes until he escaped by jumping into a canal, an official said on Friday. Abdul Hamid, 46, was in a critical condition after the attack on Monday in Bangladesh’s Sunderbans mangrove forest, resident medical officer Nazrul Islam said. Fellow fishermen rescued the semi-conscious Hamid and took him to a hospital at Shymnagar in Satkhira district with serious bite wounds to his neck and body. — AFP

36 killed in snowstorms

BEIJING: Snowstorms and unusually cold winter weather have killed 36 people in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan and stranded more than 190,000, a news report said on Friday. Economic losses were believed to total $300 million, the China Daily newspaper said. Yunnan is in the tropics, but much of it is mountainous and the province’s western part includes glaciers and the foothills of the Himalayas. — AP

19 Chinese miners killed

BEIJING: Rescuers on Friday discovered the bodies of 19 coal miners killed in an underground blast at a mine in southwestern China, the government said. The blast occurred Thursday afternoon in the Sulongsi coal mine in Xinzhen town near the industrial city of Chongqing, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The cause of the blast was being investigated, Xinhua said. — AP

6 J&K ultras gunned down

NEW DELHI: Security forces raided a suspected Islamic rebel hideout in the Indian portion of Kashmir on Friday, killing six militants in a fierce gunbattle, a news report said. The fighting occurred in Duggernar, 80 km south of Srinagar, the Press Trust of India news agency quoted a defence ministry official as saying. Security forces recovered four AK-47 assault rifles and one pistol from the rebels after the firefight, it said. There were no casualties among the Indian troops. — AP

WWII wreckage found

JAKARTA: The wreckage of a US plane believed to have been shot down by Japanese forces during World War II has been found in the jungles of Indonesia’s Papua province, state media reported on Friday. The aircraft was found hidden in the undergrowth in the mountainous and undeveloped province’s Kombieti Moso area, near the border with Papua New Guinea, the state Antara news agency said. It said the body of the aircraft, emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes, was intact but the wings were badly damaged. — AFP

Frog marriages for rain

Mikirbheta: Villagers in Assam have been performing marriage of frogs to end the spectre of drought. A mix of superstition and desperation over dry skies has led residents to organise frog marriages in the belief the frogs are messengers of the Hindu rain god Indra. At least 500 people converged on Thursday at a playground in Mikirbheta. A Hindu priest performed the marriage rituals, and the two frogs were declared ‘man’ and ‘wife’. A dozen other frog marriages were being performed elsewhere. — HNS