IN BRIEF (Page 8)

BANGLADESH

Temple worker hacked to death

A Hindu temple worker was hacked to death in western Bangladesh on Friday, police said, the latest in a series of attacks on religious minorities by suspected Islamists. Three men on a motorcycle attacked Shyamananda Das as he walked along a road near the temple early in the morning, police said. Police said the 50-year-old, also known as Babaji, was a volunteer who helped conduct prayers at temples. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

LIBYA

Ten migrants die in sinking boat

Ten women died when their rubber boat sank off the coast of Libya on Thursday, the Italian coast guard said. And on Thursday, the Italian coast guard ship Diciotti recovered 107 survivors. The latest incidents came as the navy revised down the estimated death toll in a 2015 migrant shipwreck thought to be one of the worst in history, as the doomed vessel was taken to a Sicilian port after being raised from the seabed.

INDIA

Indigenous combat jet enters service

India's first locally-built combat aircraft officially took to the skies on Friday, 33 years after it was cleared for development, marking a long-held goal of cutting expensive imports to build a domestic defense-industrial base. India's fighter aircraft fleet, made up of a mix of Russian, British and French planes, is down to 33 squadrons as against the air force's requirement of 45.

MIDDLE EAST

Woman killed after stabbing attempt

Israeli security forces said they shot and killed a Palestinian woman in the flashpoint city of Hebron in the West Bank after she tried to stab police officers near a military checkpoint on Friday morning. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that the woman, armed with a knife, approached a Border Police post near Ibrahimi Mosque, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews, who revere it as the "Cave of the Patriarchs".

UNITED STATES

Lab worker fakes test results

A worker at a federal laboratory in Colorado intentionally manipulated test results for years, possibly tainting research that includes toxic metals in the Everglades, uranium near the Grand Canyon and coal in Afghanistan, investigators said. The falsified data from a US Geological Survey lab may have affected 24 coal, water and environmental research projects costing a total of $108 million, according to a report released recently by the Interior Department's inspector general.

Driver killed while using car's 'Autopilot'

The United States announced on Thursday the first fatality in a wreck involving a car in self-driving mode, the 40-year-old owner of a technology company, who nicknamed his vehicle "Tessy", had praised its sophisticated "Autopilot" system just one month earlier for preventing a collision on an interstate. The government said it is investigating the design and performance of the system aboard the Tesla Model S sedan.

(China Daily 07/02/2016 page8)