Landslide kills 10

ALMATY: A landslide in southeastern Kazakhstan on Sunday killed at least 10 people including a number of Chinese migrant workers, while another 14 people remained unaccounted for, an emergencies spokes-man said. The mudslide engulfed a two-storey apartment block and a wooden shack at a residential health centre in a village near Almaty. Among those caught in the landslide were nine Chinese citizens who had been carrying out repairs at the health centre, which lies around 250 km from Kazakhstan’s border with China. — AFP

US troops kill two in Haiti

Port-au-Prince: Relatives wailed in grief over two people shot by US troops as anger grew over the US-led peacekeeping operation, with some Haitians demanding the US return ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide was to fly to Jamaica on Monday to be reunited with his daughters, who stayed in New York during the upheaval. The flight was expected to land in the Central African Republic on Sunday. — AP

Bonuses for US troops

SEOUL: The US Army plans to pay monthly bonuses to soldiers who extend their tours of duty in South Korea, according to a statement. The new incentive programme comes as the US military juggles operations in Iraq and Afghanistan requiring routine injections of troops from elsewhere. US also is trying to upgrade its forces in South Korea as part of a global realignment that comes amid heightened concern over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. Soldiers who sign on for another year of duty in the South will get an extra $300 a month. — AP

Schroeder to contest polls

BERLIN: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said on Sunday he would contest parliamentary elections in 2006 despite the toll taken by the controversial social and economic policies of his Social Democratic Party. “All those who think the 2006 elections cannot be won because of the reforms we have undertaken are completely mistaken. I want to win them and I have every hope of doing so,” he told German radio. — AFP

Arroyo open to detente

BAGUIO: President Gloria Arroyo said on Sunday that political settlements to the Philippines’ decades-old communist and Muslim separatist rebellions were both within reach. “The war on insurgency and that we are waging can yet be settled on the negotiating table,” she said in a speech to the graduating class of the Philippine Military Academy. Arroyo launched peace talks with communist insurgent leaders in Norway last month. Separate peace talks are scheduled in Malaysia next month with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. — AFP

UNICEF famine probe

SEOUL: A high-level delegation from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) was in North Korea on Sunday to look into relief activities in the famine-stricken country, reports said. The delegation led by UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy flew into Pyongyang on Saturday, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch. Bellamy was to discuss the organisation’s relief activities with officials and visit childcare centres and public health facilities, Yonhap said. — AFP

Drunk TV scribe fined

DUBAI: A Dubai court has fined a British-Lebanese newsreader with Al-Arabiya television $2,180 for a hit-and-run crash while drunk, a newspaper said on Sunday. The 33-year-old woman was found guilty of drunk driving, speeding, destroying public and private property, causing injury to other motorists, not reporting the accident and alcohol abuse, the Gulf News said. The court also fined a Jordanian student $545 for claiming to police that he had been driving the unnamed woman’s car. — AFP

More wins for Kerry

Illinois: Democratic Senator John Kerry locked up the delegates needed to secure his party’s nomination, US media reported today, a day after Kerry challenged President George W Bush to a series of debates. Earlier, the Massachusetts senator cruised to an easy win in caucuses in the central state of Kansas, leading US media to report that he now has more than the 2,162 delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination at the party convention in July. — AFP