China

Beijing makes call on ties

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Monday called on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea to maintain dialogue and improve relations. Hong made the remarks at a regular news conference in response to the DPRK's decision to delay a reunion for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War and to postpone working-level talks with the ROK to discuss the resumption of tours to Mount Kumgang.

France

Mother accused in child's rape

A French mother who allegedly held down her 4-year-old son while he was raped by his stepfather in a prison visiting room went on trial in Strasbourg on Monday. In a case which could also lead legal action against the prison itself, Sabrina Bonner, 25, and the stepfather, Lionel Barthelemy, 31, are charged with multiple sexual assaults on the boy, who is now 8 and in the care of social services.

United Nations

HIV infections plummet: report

New HIV infections have fallen by one-third overall since 2001 and by more than half among children, the United Nations said on Monday in Geneva. Globally, 2.3 million people contracted the AIDS virus last year, down 33 percent from 2001. Meanwhile, 260,000 children became infected - over a third fewer than in 2009 and 52 percent down from 2001.

Italy

Lawyers want inspection

Lawyers for the captain of Italy's doomed cruise ship asked for permission on Monday for experts to go aboard the wreckage of the Costa Concordia to see if technical problems contributed to the disaster. The ship was hoisted upright last week from its watery grave off Giglio Island following the biggest-ever salvage operation of its kind, 20 months after it ran aground.

Iraq

Road bomb hits ambulance

A bomb exploded near an ambulance carrying a pregnant woman to a hospital in Iraq on Monday, wounding her and the driver and killing two people, police and a doctor said. The blast near the northern city of Mosul also wounded the driver of the ambulance, the sources said, adding that the dead were a relative of the woman and a medic.

Zimbabwe

Poachers kill 81 elephants

Zimbabwe's government said on Monday that a "poaching syndicate" has killed at least 81 elephants, unknown numbers of buffalos and kudus by poisoning in the country's largest national park. Six suspects were arrested two weeks ago but the scale of the cyanide-poisoning has only gradually unfolded as more elephant carcasses were discovered in the sprawling Hwange National Park.

Xinhua-AFP

(China Daily 09/24/2013 page11)