IN BRIEF (Page 11)

United Kingdom

Police release Sinn Fein leader

Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams was released without being charged on Sunday after five days of police questioning over his alleged involvement in a decades-old IRA killing of a Belfast mother of 10. Adams said he wanted his party to provide help to the children of Jean McConville, the 37-year-old widow killed by the Irish Republican Army in 1972. He also rejected claims that he had ordered the killing.

Afghanistan

Govt seeks to build new homes

Afghan officials said on Monday they were seeking to build new homes for hundreds of families displaced by a landslide that entombed a village, killing at least 300 people. Also on Monday, presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani visited the scene in the northeastern Badakhshan province, a mountainous and relatively peaceful region bordering Tajikistan, China and Pakistan. Another candidate, front-runner Abdullah Abdullah, was due later on Monday night, officials said.

United States

3 seriously hurt in circus accident

At least three performers remain in critical condition after a circus accident. Authorities are trying to determine what caused a support frame to collapse on Sunday during the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Legends show at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island. The accident occurred during an act in which the circus says eight performers hang "like a human chandelier" using their hair.

France

Pig products ban suspended

France suspended its unilateral decision to ban imports of pigs and pork-based by-products from the United States, Canada, Mexico and Japan over fears of a deadly virus pending the results of an EU meeting to be held on Tuesday, the farm ministry said. A senior official had said on Friday that France would issue a ban on Saturday in a bid to ward off porcine epidemic diarrhea virus.

Saudi Arabia

MERS death toll reaches 115

Saudi health authorities announced on Monday that the death toll from Middle East respiratory syndrome has reached 115 since the respiratory disease first appeared in the kingdom in 2012. Three people - a 45-year-old man and two women, aged 50 and 54 - died on Saturday after contracting MERS in the commercial capital of Jeddah, the Health Ministry said on its website.

Syris

Aleppo fighting claims 21 rebels

Fierce fighting around Syria's contested northern province of Aleppo killed at least 21 rebels on Monday as rockets slammed into a government-held district in the provincial capital, killing nine people.

AP-AFP-Reuters

(China Daily 05/06/2014 page11)