Official in Myanmar
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (below) surveyed devastated sections of Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta on Thursday and said he was very upset by the conditions of cyclone survivors. He is one of a handful of foreigners allowed to see the zone firsthand.
Bhutto probe
Pakistan’s government said Thursday it is ready to ask the UN to investigate the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto. President Pervez Musharraf and the U.S. have opposed a UN investigation as unnecessary.
Fleeing S. Africa
Hundreds of immigrants boarded crowded buses from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Mozambique and other African nations Thursday, passing bags and even babies through the windows in a rush to flee violent attacks against outsiders that have left 42 dead.
NATO soldier killed
Gunfire broke out Thursday at a protest in western Afghanistan against a U.S. sniper in Iraq who used a Quran for target practice. Officials said a NATO soldier and two civilians were killed.
Toll rises
China said the toll of dead and missing from last week’s powerful earthquake jumped to more than 80,000, while the government appealed Thursday for millions of tents to shelter homeless survivors. The confirmed number of dead rose nearly 10,000 from the day before to 51,151.
Vandals strike
Two men attacked the ancient monument of Stonehenge with a hammer and chipped off a piece of stone the size of a large coin, a conservation group said Thursday. They were spotted by security guards at the site 90 miles west of London but escaped by jumping over a fence and driving off.
THE DIGIT
18
Number of times a veteran Sherpa guide scaled Mount Everest. Appa, 47, who like most Sherpas goes by only one name, reached the 29,035-foot summit along with several of his team members early Thursday, said Ang Tshering of the Nepal Mountaineering Association.
