China flu death

BEIJING: An 18-year-old woman in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa has become China’s first swine flu fatality, the Health Ministry and a state news agency said on Tuesday. A patient died on Sunday in Tibet, the Health Ministry said on its Web site. “This is China’s first fatal case of the H1N1 flu,” the ministry statement said. Meanwhile, Xinhua News Agency said the patient was an 18-year-old woman who died at a hospital in Maizhokunggar County, part of Lhasa. China’s mainland had 21,453 confirmed cases of H1N1 flu as of Tuesday, the Health Ministry said. — AP

Genocide suspect held

KAMPALA: A Rwandan former intelligence officer, Idelphonse Nizeyimana, suspected of playing a key role in the 1994 genocide, has been arrested in the Ugandan capital Kampala. Nizeyimana, on Monday. Nizeyimana, nick-named the Butcher

of Butare, was born in Gisenyi in northwestern Rwanda, and was

serving as an intelligence officer

in the Rwandan army in the southern town of Butare at the time of the genocide. — AFP

UN seeks aid

GENEVA: The United Nations on Tuesday appealed for $74 million in emergency aid for some one million people in the storm and flood-stricken Philippines. Relief agencies reported that flood victims were wading through neck high water to collect emergency food rations as typhoon Parma lingered off the coast over the weekend tropical storm Ketsana on September 26, Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN’s humanitarian coordination office, said. — AFP