A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Flood traps Chinese miners
BEIJING – An underground flood trapped 28 miners in southwestern China yesterday, the Xinhua news agency said, in the latest accident involving the country’s mines, considered the deadliest in the world.
Thirteen of 41 miners were able to escape when an underground pit at Bastian coal mine in Weidman county filled up with water, a provincial work safety bureau told Xinhua.
A spokesman for the bureau said rescue efforts were under way, but the location and condition of the workers were not known.
China’s mines are considered the deadliest in the world, due to lax safety standards and a rush to feed demand from a robust economy. More than 2,600 people died in coal mine accidents in China in 2009 alone.
The last mine accident in China, also a flood, killed 12 in Guizhou province on October 27th, according to the State Administration of Work Safety website.
– (Reuters)
Clinton rules out election run
WASHINGTON – US secretary of state Hillary Clinton says she is not planning to run again for president or any other political office.
"I am very happy doing what I'm doing and I am not in any way interested in or pursuing anything in elective office," the former US first lady told Fox News Sunday.
Her comments followed Washington speculation that Mr Obama might pick her for vice-president when he seeks re-election in 2012 and move vice-president Joe Biden to the state department.
The White House and Mr Biden denied such reports.
After eight years in the White House as the wife of former president Bill Clinton, Mrs Clinton won two terms as a US senator from New York before losing the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination to Mr Obama. She said she was not interested in a rematch.
“I love what I’m doing. I am committed to doing what I can to advance the security, the interests and the values of the United States”, she said. – (Reuters)
Israeli police break up fake ID scam
JERUSALEM – Israeli police have broken up a scam carried out by ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups who faked ID cards for fictitious students
in order to receive millions
of extra dollars from the state, according to a spokesman.
Micky Rosenfeld said yesterday that police arrested six people after they found more than 1,000 fake ID cards during a raid on three ultra-Orthodox educational institutions in Jerusalem.
The fraud lasted more than a year, Mr Rosenfeld said, and cost the government “tens of millions of shekels”.
Israel provides stipends for students who study at full- time Jewish seminaries, or yeshivas, a policy in place for years, but one that has been facing increased opposition from the country’s secular majority.
Consecutive government coalitions have relied on the support of ultra-religious parties, who in return have traditionally received financial benefits for their own community. – (Reuters)