CLINTON-ASIA: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left China Sunday after meeting
with women and civil society leaders at the U.S. Embassy, attending
services at a state-sanctioned church in Beijing and answering
questions on a Web chat.
In a full day of meetings Saturday with China's top leaders, Clinton
made it clear that the Obama administration seeks to forge good
relations with China.
She said the two countries will focus on areas of cooperation, such as
combatting the global economic crisis and mitigating climate change,
and not on areas of contention.
CHINA-MINE ACCIDENT: China has confirmed that 73 miners are dead and dozens are still trapped following a gas explosion in a coal mine.
China's official Xinhua news agency says the accident happened early Sunday at a mine in northern Shanxi province (in Gujiao city).
The agency said there were 436 miners underground at the time of the explosion, but that most managed to escape.
Rescuers said among 113 hospitalized miners, 21 are in critical condition.
ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS: Egypt has temporarily re-opened its border crossing with the Gaza Strip
to allow students, the sick, and people who hold foreign passports to
leave the territory.
A border spokesman and Palestinian officials said the Rafah crossing
would be open Sunday and Monday to allow people to cross into Egypt
from Gaza.
Egypt closed the border after the Palestinian militant group Hamas took
control of Gaza in June of 2007. It has occasionally opened it since
then for exceptional cases.
VIETNAM-BIRD FLU: Doctors in Vietnam say a 23-year-old woman has died from bird flu, the first death from the virus in Vietnam this year.
Hospital workers say the woman died Sunday after being in the hospital for three weeks.
The World Health Organizations says she developed symptoms on January 28th and was hospitalized a few days later.
Officials in northern Quand Ninh province say the woman became BURMA: Democracy activists in Burma say only about a dozen political prisoners
were freed as part of a general amnesty that began Saturday.
Burma's military government announced plans Friday to release more than
6,000 prisoners, a day after a visit by U.N. human rights envoy Tomas
Ojea Quintana.
Opposition spokesman Nyan Win said that among those freed was Zaw Myint
Maung, a member of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy
party, who had been imprisoned since 1991.
