OTHER NEWS

A PLEASURE BOAT accident killed 43 fourth-graders on a spring outing in east China, an official newspaper reported Friday. Forty other 10- and 11-year-olds from Huzhen Primary School were rescued when the two overloaded vessels sank 15 minutes after they left the dock on the Yanmenxiang Reservoir, police said . . . A STRONG earthquake east of Japan on Friday triggered warnings of a possible minor tidal wave along the country's Pacific coast, officials said . . . SIXTEEN PEOPLE were killed and 12 others injured in the southern Philippines when a commuter bus lost its brakes and slammed into a loaded passenger jeep, police said Friday . . . MORE THAN 1.5 million bank and insurance workers staged a one-day strike Friday in India, disrupting economic and business activity all over the country, reports said.