CHINA
China launches module for space station
BEIJING | China launched an experimental module to lay the groundwork for a future space station on Thursday, underscoring its ambitions to become a major space power.
The boxcar-sized Tiangong-1 module was shot into space from the Jiuquan launch center on the edge of the Gobi Desert aboard a Long March 2FT1 rocket.
After moving it into orbit, China plans to launch an unmanned Shenzhou 8 spacecraft to practice docking maneuvers with the module, possibly within the next few weeks.
Two more missions, at least one of them manned, are to meet up with it next year for further practice, with astronauts staying for up to one month.
The 8.5-ton module, whose name translates as “Heavenly Palace-1,” is to stay aloft for two years.
INDIA
Death toll rises to 335 in monsoon flood
PATNA | Authorities stepped up efforts Thursday to deliver food and evacuate villagers stranded by monsoon flooding in eastern India as searchers reported finding 28 more bodies, bringing the country’s seasonal death toll to 335.
With relentless rains finally easing, air force helicopters dropped food parcels, and hundreds of boats tried to reach nearly 100,000 people marooned in more than 1,300 villages in the eastern state of Orissa, said Prabitta Mohapatra, the special relief commissioner.
The boats have evacuated more than 120,000 people and are continuing to bring people to safer ground, including people stranded on rooftops, Mr. Mohapatra told the Associated Press.
India’s monsoon season started in June.
HONG KONG
Typhoon arrives after hitting Philippines
A powerful typhoon slammed into southern China on Thursday after skirting Hong Kong and bringing death and widespread flooding to the Philippines earlier this week.
Typhoon Nesat made landfall on the eastern tip of China’s Hainan island at 2:30 p.m. and was packing winds as high as 94 miles an hour, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The storm blew down trees and flooded streets as it moved across Hainan, photos on state media showed. A large tree toppled onto a parked car in the provincial capital, Haikou.
Flood-control officials said nearly 58,000 people were evacuated from low-lying areas in eastern Wenchang city and 67 flights were canceled at the island’s two airports, Xinhua said.
TAIWAN
Police: 800 arrested over phone scams
TAIPEI | Taiwanese police said Thursday they have arrested 800 suspected phone scammers in raids coordinated with police in China and seven Southeast Asian countries.
Taiwan’s Crime Investigation Bureau said the suspects, including about 300 Taiwanese and 500 Chinese, were arrested Wednesday at 166 locations across Asia.
In a statement on its website, the bureau said those arrested were suspected of swindling more than $31 million from mostly Chinese and Taiwanese victims.
SINGAPORE
Explosions rock Shell oil refinery
Explosions rocked Royal Dutch Shell’s largest oil refinery on Thursday, forcing the closure of several refining units and the evacuation of most staff as a fire at the Singapore plant continued for a second day.
Witnesses told the Straits Times newspaper that they heard three large blasts around midday and saw a “fireball shooting into the sky.”
A blaze that broke out Wednesday at the 500,000-barrel-a-day refinery on Bukom, an island three miles offshore, had appeared to be brought largely under control.
CHINA
Signal maker rejects blame for Shanghai rail crash
SHANGHAI | The China-based maker of signaling systems for the Shanghai subway line where two trains crashed this week, injuring 284 people, said Thursday that its equipment was not at fault.
“Our signal system has nothing to do with this incident,” Casco Signal Ltd. said in a notice on its website. Casco signal is a joint venture of China Railway Signal and Communication Corp. and France’s Alstom SA.
The company earlier had refused comment on Tuesday’s accident.
The subway operator, Shanghai Shentong Metro Group, says initial checks found train operators violated regulations while operating the trains manually, attributing the crash mainly to human error.
A loss of power on the line, one of Shanghai’s newest and most modern, caused its signal system to fail, so the trains had to be operated manually, communicating through phones, Shanghai Shentong said.
From wire dispatches and staff reports
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