News in brief

India mine collapse

Published : Saturday, 31 December, 2016 at 12:00 AM Count : 601

NEW DELHI, Dec 30 : At least eight workers were killed and scores more feared trapped on Friday after a massive mound of earth caved in at a coal mine in eastern India. The collapse buried at least 23 miners and dozens of vehicles under the debris as hundreds of emergency workers battled overnight to rescue the men at the Lalmatia open cast mine in Jharkhand state's Godda district. �AFP

Taiwan upsets China
TAIPEI, Dec 30 : Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen will transit through Houston and San Francisco during her January visit to allies in Latin America, her office said on Friday, prompting China to repeat a call for the U.S. to block any such stopover. Tsai's office declined to comment on whether she would be meeting members of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's team, but the U.S. mission in Taiwan, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), said the visit would be "private and unofficial". �REUTERS

China blocks India�s request
NEW DELHI, Dec 30 : China has blocked India's request to add the head of the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad to a U.N. Security Council blacklist of groups linked to al Qaeda, India said on Friday. India has accused Jaish-e-Mohammad and its top leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, of masterminding several attacks, including a deadly assault on an Indian air base in January. Pakistani security officials interrogated Azhar and his associates after the attack, and said they found no evidence linking him to it. �REUTERS

Greek ambassador missing
RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 30 : The discovery of a burned-out car in Rio state on Thursday with a body inside has sparked fears that it might be that of the Greek ambassador to Brazil, missing since Monday. Rio police were examining the corpse and scene but could not immediately say whether it was that of the envoy, 59-year-old Kyriakos Amiridis. "The information that we can confirm right now is that we have found a car in (the district of) Nova Iguacu with a body and it is being investigated," a source in the homicide squad said. �AFP