The world in brief

Monday, December 16, 2013

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Electricity connects you to the world.We lived two days without electricity and felt we were disconnected from the world.” Fida Naser, a university student from the town of Dora in southern West Bank, referring to power failures caused by a rare wintry storm that dumped snow on the Gaza Strip Article, this pageUkraine leader blasted as EU talks halted

KIEV, Ukraine - The European Union on Sunday broke off talks with Ukraine on the far-reaching trade deal that protesters here have been demanding for weeks, and a top official issued a stinging, angry statement all but accusing Ukraine’s president of dissembling.

The bloc’s enlargement chief, Stefan Fule, wrote on Twitter that the words and actions of the president, Viktor Yanukovych, were “growing further and further apart,” even as the Ukrainian crisis was showing signs of deepening. On Sunday, about 100,000 protesters clogged a main plaza and surrounding streets, rivaling earlier weekend rallies in size.

Fule said that further discussions on the trade agreement would hinge on receiving clear signals from Ukraine’s government but that he had so far received no response.

Officials in Brussels, the headquarters of the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, confirmed the decision to suspend the talks with Ukraine.

Venezuela scraps Paris flight on bomb tip

CARACAS, Venezuela - A Paris-bound flight was rescheduled for Sunday after Venezuela grounded an Air France plane that French intelligence authorities said terrorists might have been planning to blow up.

Searchers turned up no evidence of explosives on the plane, Venezuela’s government said Sunday.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres told state TV late Saturday that more than 60 technicians, bomb experts and a canine team would perform an exhaustive search of the aircraft before the flight could be reprogrammed He said that authorities were closely monitoring all Air France flights entering and leaving the country.

The precise nature of the bomb threat was not known, but Rodriguez Torres said that French authorities passed along information from a credible source that a terrorist group was seeking to place a bomb aboard an unspecified flight from Caracas to Paris, or vice versa.

The passengers were put back on the Air France plane Sunday, and it left Caracas just before 4 p.m. local time, airport officials said.

China: Attack kills 2 police, 14 others

BEIJING - Assailants attacked police officers who were pursuing suspects in China’s restive western region of Xinjiang, and two officers and 14 attackers were killed, state media said today.

The region’s official news portal, Tianshan Net, reported that knife-wielding assailants hurled explosive devices at police officers in Shufu county of Kashgar prefecture.

The officers were in Sayibage township in pursuit of criminal suspects when they came under attack by “several thugs” who threw explosive devices and used knives in the attack, the report said.

Two police officers died in the attack while 14 attackers were shot and killed, Tianshan Net said. Another two suspected assailants were arrested.

Calls to local authorities rang unanswered or were answered by officials who said they did not know about the attack.

Xinjiang has long been home to a simmering rebellion against Chinese rule among parts of the Muslim Uighur population.

Bus falls off road in Philippines; 21 die

MANILA, Philippines - A passenger bus plunged from an elevated highway in suburban Manila and fell onto a van passing below this morning, killing at least 21 people and injuring 20 others, police said.

TV footage showed a number of bodies strewn around the bus wreckage with police officers nearby. The van was an unrecognizable pile of smashed white metal.

The bus veered off the Skype, as the elevated road is called, and crashed onto the van in suburban Paranaque city at dawn, police Superintendent Elizabeth Velasquez said.

The van’s driver was killed, and the bus driver was in serious condition in a hospital, she said.

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the accident, but the highway was wet from rain, said Ivy Vidal, a spokesman from Skyway Operations and Maintenance Corp.

Irene Sisperes, a motorist who witnessed the accident, said she was driving with her daughter at 50 mph when the bus overtook her car. She estimated that the bus was traveling between 62 and 68 mph.

She said it was still dark and it was raining when the accident happened.

Front Section, Pages 8 on 12/16/2013