Briefly

JAPAN

13 crew missing after ship collision

Thirteen crew members including seven Chinese nationals onboard a Belize-flagged cargo ship are missing after the ship collided with a fishing boat off Japan's northeastern prefecture of Aomori late on Saturday, the Chinese consulate general in Sapporo said on Sunday. Guo Xing One, the 1,989-ton cargo ship with 14 crew onboard, informed the Japanese side after it suffered a collision about 12 kilometers off the coast of Rokkasho. The collision caused water to enter the ship, which sank at about 10:35 pm local time. The 13 missing crew also included five Vietnamese and one Filipino. One Vietnamese crew member was rescued. The Chinese consulate general said it immediately activated the emergency response mechanism and contacted relevant Japanese departments to obtain information, asking the Japan Coast Guard and other agencies to carry out search and rescue.

UNITED STATES

Victory revives Biden's presidential hopes

Former US vice-president Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary on Saturday, reviving his flagging campaign and positioning himself as the leading rival to front-runner Bernie Sanders in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. All of the major television networks projected the 77-year-old Biden as the winner in South Carolina just minutes after polls closed in the state. The networks did not provide any vote totals but the early projections were an indication that Biden had scored a decisive win in the state where he was counting on heavy support among African-American voters. A South Carolina victory was seen as crucial to Biden's hopes of challenging Sanders, the 78-year-old senator from Vermont, to lead the Democratic ticket in November against Republican Donald Trump.

GERMANY

11 hurt as woman, 81, drives into crowd

An 81-year-old woman drove into a crowd at a tram stop in Essen, western Germany on Saturday evening, injuring 11 people including three who were in a critical condition, local media quoted a police spokesperson as saying. The local media, das Bild, reported that the woman drove into a group of people who were getting off the tram, police spokesman Christoph Wickhorst was quoted as saying. The driver was also injured and was taken to hospital later. It is unclear whether the driver missed the traffic light or the traffic light was defective or what else led to the accident, the report said. According to the newspaper Westdeutsche Zeitung, three people suffered life-threatening injuries, four were seriously hurt, and five escaped with minor injuries. Police were recording witness statements about what happened from people at the site.