Afghanistan: Battles kill 41
KABUL — A string of bombings and gun battles reported around Afghanistan Saturday killed 41 people and left at least six wounded, including two foreigners hurt in a suicide bombing near the capital.
Insurgent violence is running at its highest level since U.S. forces invaded the country in 2001 to oust the hard-line Islamic Taliban rulers, who had harbored al-Qaida leaders following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Canada: Wedding injuries
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — A pickup truck plowed through a crowd leaving a pre-wedding celebration in western Canada, killing six people and injuring 19, police said Saturday.
The 71-year-old driver of a truck lost control and ran into 25 to 30 people who were walking along a rural road toward him, police in Abbotsford, British Columbia, said. The victims had been at the bride's parents' house and were heading to another home, making their way along an unlit road lined with parked cars, according to police and a neighbor.
Neither the bride nor the groom was injured.
India: 2 school boys killed
MUMBAI — Three boarding school students are accused of strangling two small boys in the hope that classes would be suspended after the deaths, police said Saturday.
The three students, ages 12 and 13, confessed to strangling an 8-year-old boy and his 5-year-old brother so that their school would close down, said S. Sethi, a police officer in the Jalna district, about 200 miles east of Mumbai.
South Korea: Fatal floods
SEOUL — Floods that swept across North Korea earlier this month killed at least 600 people, double the previously known toll, the country's official news agency said Saturday.
Citing North Korea's Central Statistics Bureau, the Korean Central News Agency also reported that thousands were injured. The report was the first in North Korean media to specify a precise death toll from the disaster.