PHILIPPINES

Quake: rescuers race against time

RESCUERS yesterday battled against time, rain and equipment shortages in their search for at least 71 people missing for three days in landslides caused by a magnitude-6.9 earthquake.

Thirty people have been confirmed dead in Monday's earthquake. Search operations for 29 missing villagers in Guihulngan City were suspended after heavy rains and fears that the remaining part of the collapsed mountain would break off. More than 40 people in Solonggon are also unaccounted for. - Sapa-dpa

SOMALIA

Mogadishu suicide blast death toll rises to 15

THE death toll in a suicide bombing targeting government officials in Mogadishu has risen to 15.

Thirteen people died when the car bomb exploded near a hotel popular with lawmakers on Wednesday evening. Another two died of their injuries in hospital.

Islamist insurgent group al-Shabab said it carried out the attack. -Sapa-dpa

Maldives

Deposed president vows to fight on

THE former president of the Maldives has vowed to fight against a government he says ousted him in a coup with the connivance of police and military.

Mohamed Nasheed appeared to be daring the government, led by his former vice-president, Mohamed Waheed Hussain Manik, to arrest him.

"The home minister has pledged [I will be] the first former president to spend all my life in jail," said a relaxed Nasheed, who showed no signs of his reported beating on Wednesday. - Reuters

Mexico

Army finds 15 tons of pure methamphetamine

TROOPS have made an historic seizure of 15 tons of pure methamphetamine in the state of Jalisco, the Mexican army said .

Soldiers discovered the huge cache in the town of Tlajomulco de Zuniga, a suburb of Mexico's second-largest city, Guadalajara.

No one could say what the largest seizure was previously in Mexico.

The UN says total meth seizures worldwide in 2009 totalled 31 metric tons. Mexico is the main source of the meth sold in the US. - Sapa-AP

YEMEN

Troops kill two at anti-election protest

TROOPS killed two protesters yesterday during a rally in the southern province of Dalea calling for a boycott of an election to replace outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Separatists seeking to revive a southern socialist state that Saleh united with the north in 1990 have been demonstrating against the February 21 poll while the northern Shi'ite rebels say they will also not take part. - Reuters

UGANDA

Government distances itself from anti-gay bill

UGANDA's government says it does not support a parliamentarian's decision to reintroduce a bill that originally proposed the death penalty for some homosexual acts.

A government statement says the bill is not part of the government's legislative agenda, but that debate on it must proceed.

The bill was reintroduced on Tuesday by legislator David Bahati, who said when he first introduced it in 2009, his goal was to protect Ugandan children from Western gays. - Sapa-AP

US

New advance in gene therapy for blindness

US SCIENTISTS have reported a new advance in using gene therapy to restore eyesight in people with a rare, inherited form of blindness.

The therapy, previously tried in just one eye of 12 people, worked well when injected into the other eye of three of the patients, offering a sign that the treatment was safe, effective and would not be rejected by the body. - Sapa-AFP

New Zealand

Quake building was sub-standard: probe

AN OFFICE block that collapsed, killing 115 people, including 65 foreign students, in last year's Christchurch earthquake did not meet building standards, an official report found yesterday.

The six-storey Canterbury Television building crumbled and burst into flames when the quake hit the city on February 22.

The structure's failure accounted for almost two-thirds of the deaths.

A government investigation found the office block did not meet the minimum earthquake building standards. - Sapa-AFP

US

Man runs up 86 flights of stairs in 10 minutes

A GERMAN runner has won an annual race up 86 flights of stairs at the Empire State Building for a record seventh straight time.

Stuttgart resident Thomas Dold completed the Empire State Building Run-Up on Wednesday in 10 minutes and 28 seconds.

"Well, the good thing is that I've done better than all the others," said the 27-year-old Dold, who completed his last three run-ups in 10 minutes and 10 seconds or less. - Sapa-AP

AUSTRALIA

Repossessed home sold for $1000

AN AUSTRALIAN man whose house was repossessed and sold by the Victorian state government and sold at an auction for $1000 told a Melbourne court yesterday it was worth more than $600000.

Zhiping Zhou was fighting the sale of his house, which was repossessed over a $100 000 debt.

The buyer told the Victorian Supreme Court that the transaction was legal because no reserve price was set for the auction. - Sapa-dpa