News Briefs
BY Wire Reports
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
12/05/12 at 2:50 AM
Beijing: Arson at Chinese clothing factory kills 14 workers
A fire in a clothing factory apparently caused by arson killed 14 people in southern China on Tuesday, officials and state media said.
The 14 were killed and one other person was seriously injured in the fire, which broke out at 3:30 p.m. in Shantou city in Guangdong province and was put out in half an hour, the provincial emergency department said on its microblog.
The Nanfang Daily said 84 firefighters battled the blaze.
The Southern Metropolis Daily said in an online report that the victims were all women aged 18-20.
Brussels: Clinton: Deep concerns over N. Korea missile test
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expressing deep concern about North Korean plans to carry out a long-range rocket launch this month.
Clinton told foreign ministers from NATO and Russia to publicly demand that North Korea stand down.
The tests are banned by the U.N. Security Council. And Washington sees the launches as veiled tests of missiles designed to strike the United States.
North Korea has said it will launch the rocket sometime this month and that debris would fall into the Yellow Sea and in waters east of the Philippines.
The North says the rocket will be mounted with a polar-orbiting Earth observation satellite.
London: U.K. official downplays possible Israel sanctions
British Foreign Secretary William Hague has downplayed the possibility of European economic sanctions against Israel for its latest settlement-building plans, saying there is "no enthusiasm around the European Union" for such measures.
Asked in Parliament about whether Britain would put some economic muscle behind its condemnations of Israel, Hague said that imposing sanctions is not the U.K.'s approach.
Hague said Tuesday that Britain will continue to try to bring both sides back into peace talks and consider what further diplomatic steps European countries can take if Israeli settlement building continues.
Israel on Monday rejected American and European condemnations over its plans to build thousands of new homes in West Bank settlements.
Guatemala City: Software founder to seek asylum in Guatemala
Surfacing in public for the first time in weeks, software company founder John McAfee says he plans to ask for asylum in Guatemala, saying he fears persecution in Belize.
McAfee is now at a hotel in Guatemala City after sneaking out of neighboring Belize, where police have called him a person of interest in the November slaying of a fellow American ex-pat.
He tells The Associated Press that he will petition the Guatemalan government to allow him to stay. McAfee has said he fears he will be killed if he turns himself in for questioning in Belize.
: Chambersburg, Pa. Stolen baby Jesus figure returned one year later
A baby Jesus figure taken from a Pennsylvania church's Nativity scene last year was found cradled in the arms of a nearby statue, just hours before the replacement statue was swiped.
The vintage figurine was taken last year from outside Chambersburg's Central Presbyterian Church. It was found Sunday in the arms of a bronze Civil War soldier statue across the town square.
A local business had replaced the Jesus statue when the Nativity scene was set up a couple weeks ago. That replacement statue was swiped sometime after services on Sunday.
Congregant Buffy Super calls the statue's return a "Christmas miracle."
Billings, Mont.: Officials moving closer to grizzly bear trophy hunts
Wildlife managers in the northern Rockies are laying the groundwork for trophy grizzly bear hunts as the government moves toward lifting the animal's threatened species status.
It's expected to be another two years or more before roughly 1,600 bears in the regions around Yellowstone and Glacier national parks lose their federal protections.
Yet state and federal officials say the populations already have recovered enough that limited hunting could be allowed at that time. That could include areas of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho that have seen rising bear-human conflicts and livestock attacks.
It's taken decades for grizzlies to rebound from widespread extermination. Some wildlife advocates say it's too soon to talk about a hunt.
Associated Images:
Clinton
Activists from Bangladesh's largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, block a road outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, during a nationwide strike Tuesday to demand authorities halt trials of its top leaders on charges of crimes against humanity during the 1971 independence war against Pakistan. Associated Press
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