News In Brief

Floods kill 8 in Philippines
Afp, Manila

More than 200,000 flood-battered residents of the Philippine capital fled their homes yesterday as relentless monsoon rains, which have killed eight people, submerged more than half of Manila.
Streets turned into rivers with water rising above two-metres in some parts of the megacity of 12 million people, while vast areas of neighbouring farming regions on the main island of Luzon were also inundated.
US boy, 3, kills himself with gun
Cnn Online

A 3-year-old boy in a small Michigan town was killed over the weekend when he accidentally shot himself in the head with a gun he found on the closet floor of his home.
Police said Damon Holbrook discovered the gun, which belonged to a family friend who was living in the house. He was charged with careless discharge of a firearm -- a misdemeanor which carries a sentence of up to 2 years in prison or a fine of $2,000.

Asylum boat sinks off Australia; 5 missing
Afp, Sydney

Five people were missing and presumed dead yesterday as a search was suspended after 106 people were plucked to safety from a sinking asylum-seeker boat north of Australia.
There were no details of the nationalities of those missing, nor whether they were men, women or
children.

Russia scrambles to contain record floods
Afp, Moscow

Russians in the Far East yesterday battled rising floodwaters as authorities evacuated more than 23,000 people from affected areas and scrambled to prevent the outbreak of infection.
Heavy rains pounding Khabarovsk, a Far Eastern city located near the Chinese border, since July have swelled the local Amur River to nearly 7 meters -- a level unseen since monitoring of the area began in 1895.
There have been no reports of fatalities.

Iraq violence kills 35
Afp, Baghdad

Iraq violence killed 35 people including 15 civilians, officials said yesterday. Violence has claimed more than 3,500 lives already this year.
On Tuesday, six car bombs south of the capital killed six civilians and a policeman and wounded 98 people.  Another bomb struck a cafe in a village north of Baghdad, killing five people. And two separate bombings at a livestock market and a police station north of Baghdad killed three people, including a cop. Gunmen also killed two senior police officers and a civilian in the country's north.