IN BRIEF (Page 12)

THE PHILIPPINES

Quake kills at least two, injures dozens

An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 sent people scrambling on Tuesday as it shook buildings and disrupted power supply in the central area of the Philippines' southern island of Mindanao, killing at least two and injuring dozens, authorities said. The quake, which struck at 9:04 am, opened cracks in buildings and showered debris on a 66-year-old man and a 15-year-old student, killing them, police and disaster officials said. "The earthquake was very strong," Abi Agduma, a shopkeeper on the island, told broadcaster DZMM radio. "We ran outside our home. I looked at our store and our house, and they looked like they were dancing." Power cables swayed in Davao city, the hometown of President Rodrigo Duterte, where people rushed to open spaces. The quake also triggered power cuts in nearby General Santos city, media said.

SYRIA

Turkey warns Kurdish fighters near border

Turkey's foreign minister said on Monday that the Turkish military will attack any Syrian Kurdish fighters that remain along the border area in northeast Syria after a deadline for them to leave expires. Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters that Russian and Syrian officials provided information that some Kurdish fighters had pulled out of the border area, but others still had not. The Kurdish withdrawal is in line with a Russian-Turkish agreement reached last week. The Syrian Kurdish fighters have until 3 pm GMT on Tuesday to pull back to positions about 30 kilometers from the Turkish border. Turkey and Russia will conduct joint patrols along a border strip once the Kurdish forces leave. Cavusoglu said a Russian military delegation was scheduled to arrive in Turkey to discuss the planned joint patrols.

INDONESIA

Families pray for Lion Air victims

One year on from the Lion Air plane crash that killed 189, relatives and friends of victims held prayer vigils and cast flower petals into the Java Sea at the site where the budget carrier's Boeing 737 Max jet went down beneath the waves. The almost new Boeing aircraft had been flying from Jakarta to the town of Pangkal Pinang, on the Bangka-Belitung islands off Sumatra, when it crashed just minutes after takeoff. Tuesday's commemoration came days after Indonesian investigators issued their final report into the disaster, setting out Boeing's failure to identify risks in the design of cockpit software and recommending better training for Lion Air's pilots. In a statement placed in Indonesian newspapers on Tuesday, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said: "We are deeply sorry and grieve for the loss of life."

INDIA

New vaccine for killer TB expected

Scientists said on Tuesday that they are closing in on a new game-changing vaccine for tuberculosis, the world's deadliest infectious disease that claimed nearly 1.5 million lives last year. The chronic lung disease is curable. The existing Bacille-Calmette-Guerin, or BCG vaccine-licensed for humans in 1921 - is only proven to be effective for children under five for limited forms of tuberculosis. It does not protect against pulmonary TB, the most common form of the disease among adults and teens. The announcement came as thousands of researchers, TB survivors and activists gathered in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad for a global conference on lung health. India accounts for a quarter of the world's TB cases and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set an ambitious target of ending the epidemic by 2025.

Reuters - Ap - Afp

(China Daily 10/30/2019 page12)