In Brief

FATAL FLOODS – Up to 10 000 North Koreans were believed dead or missing in what Pyongyang’s official media is describing as the worst flooding in a century, an independent South Korean humanitarian group said yesterday.

North Korea’s official media has admitted that hundreds of people were dead or missing after a severe typhoon followed by heavy rain hit the country on July 10. Serious flooding helped trigger a famine in the mid-1990s in which aid groups claim some two million North Koreans died.* WILD WARNING – The third tropical storm of the Atlantic season brushed the Caribbean’s northern Leeward Islands yesterday and could become the year’s first hurricane headed for the Gulf of Mexico later this week.Forecasters have predicted up to 17 tropical storms and hurricanes this year.Last year saw a record 28, including Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in US history.* THAI TERROR – Militants detonated a bomb by a bridge on the main railway line through Thailand’s rebellious Muslim south yesterday, killing three policemen and leaving thousands of travellers stranded, officials said.The blast followed a night of arson, bombs and shooting across Thailand’s three southernmost provinces, where more than 1 300 people have been killed in a mysterious two-year Muslim separatist insurgency.* CEASEFIRE CAUTION – Uganda said yesterday it welcomed a truce call by elusive Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony, but stressed that it would only sign a ceasefire as part of a final peace agreement.The cult-like LRA is accused of killing civilians and mutilating its victims in a war against the government that has uprooted nearly two million people and killed tens of thousands, as well as destabilising southern Sudan.* KILLER BLAST – A blast in a car killed at least one man and wounded two more in the Afghan capital, Kabul, yesterday, police said.The cause of the explosion was unclear.Afghanistan is going through the bloodiest period of violence since US-led coalition troops overthrew the Taliban government in 2001.Nampa-Reuters-APSerious flooding helped trigger a famine in the mid-1990s in which aid groups claim some two million North Koreans died.* WILD WARNING – The third tropical storm of the Atlantic season brushed the Caribbean’s northern Leeward Islands yesterday and could become the year’s first hurricane headed for the Gulf of Mexico later this week.Forecasters have predicted up to 17 tropical storms and hurricanes this year.Last year saw a record 28, including Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in US history. * THAI TERROR – Militants detonated a bomb by a bridge on the main railway line through Thailand’s rebellious Muslim south yesterday, killing three policemen and leaving thousands of travellers stranded, officials said.The blast followed a night of arson, bombs and shooting across Thailand’s three southernmost provinces, where more than 1 300 people have been killed in a mysterious two-year Muslim separatist insurgency.* CEASEFIRE CAUTION – Uganda said yesterday it welcomed a truce call by elusive Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony, but stressed that it would only sign a ceasefire as part of a final peace agreement.The cult-like LRA is accused of killing civilians and mutilating its victims in a war against the government that has uprooted nearly two million people and killed tens of thousands, as well as destabilising southern Sudan.* KILLER BLAST – A blast in a car killed at least one man and wounded two more in the Afghan capital, Kabul, yesterday, police said.The cause of the explosion was unclear.Afghanistan is going through the bloodiest period of violence since US-led coalition troops overthrew the Taliban government in 2001.Nampa-Reuters-AP