IN BRIEF (Page 12)

China

Abe's remarks criticized

Beijing expressed shock on Monday at Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's remarks on Japan's wartime history. Abe said on Sunday that each country has its own sense of pride in its history and it is wrong to play the history card in diplomacy. "We urge Japan to stop using the history issue as a tool to hurt the feelings of people in victimized Asian countries," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a news conference on Monday.

Spain

Bus crash claims 9 lives

A bus careened off a central Spanish highway and smashed into a safety barrier on Monday, killing nine people and injuring at least 15, emergency services said. The regional bus run by a private company, Cevesa, was prevented from sliding further down a slope alongside the road by a safety barrier.

India

12 killed in hotel collapse

A two-story hotel collapsed in the southern Indian city of Secunderabad on Monday, killing at least 12 people and injuring 16 others, police said. Rescue workers were searching through tons of rubble for those still trapped after the incident in Andhra Pradesh state, local police official K. Satyanarayana told AFP.

Switzerland

Floods to cost insurers $4.5b

The devastating floods that hit Central and Eastern Europe last month caused up to $4.5 billion in losses for the insurance industry, Swiss re-insurance group Swiss Re said on Monday. Swollen rivers caused deadly floods in Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia in late May and June, killing at least 19 people.

Gaza Strip

Counterfeiting ring smashed

Gaza's Hamas authorities say they have broken up a counterfeiting ring that had printed millions of dollars worth of fake money.

China Daily-AFP-AP

(China Daily 07/09/2013 page12)