Brazil: Train crash kills 8
RIO DE JANEIRO — A speeding train carrying hundreds of commuters slammed into an empty train near Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, killing at least eight people and injuring 60, officials said.
The collision about 200 yards from a train station on Rio's poor north side left some people trapped in wreckage.
"We have to use blowtorches to open the sides of the train cars to reach the people," said Pedro Machado, commander-general of the Rio de Janeiro Fire Department.
Up to 850 people were aboard the commuter train traveling at 60 mph when it crashed into the rear end of an empty train, which was being moved from one track to another, firefighters and train company officials said.
Chile: Violent clashes
SANTIAGO — Police arrested at least 750 people in clashes that extended through the night in Chile's capital as a protest demanding higher wages led to looting, officials said Thursday. Police said 98 people were injured.
The protest was called by Chile's largest labor federation to demand better conditions for workers frustrated that they haven't received a greater share of the nation's economic boom.
But it grew increasingly violent, with riots and looting in working class neighborhoods.
China: Minister replaced
BEIJING — China replaced its finance minister Thursday amid reports he was involved in a sex scandal and also named a new chief of secret police. The reshuffle appeared aimed at putting President Hu Jintao's allies in key positions before a Communist Party meeting that will set policies for the next five years.
Jin Renqing, the finance minister since 2003, was resigning "for personal reasons," a Cabinet spokeswoman said without elaborating, fueling speculation that he had run afoul of the Communist Party leadership.
Rumors that the 63-year-old Jin was on his way out as finance chief had circulated for days, raising concerns in global financial circles.
Peru: Quake relief sought
LIMA — Relief officials urgently appealed for more aid Thursday for earthquake survivors along Peru's shattered southern coast. Medical help, blankets and tents top the list, along with food, water and latrines.
Two weeks after the devastating quake, survivors are huddling in cardboard shelters in desperate, unhygienic conditions, said Doctors Without Borders spokesman Francois Dumont, speaking from the town of Guadalupe.
The magnitude-8 earthquake on Aug. 15 leveled most of Pisco, a port city 125 miles southeast of Lima, killing at least 519 people, injuring 1,366 and destroying 40,000 homes.
United Nations: Iraq surprise
U.N. weapons inspectors discovered a potentially hazardous chemical warfare agent that was taken from an Iraqi chemical weapons facility 11 years ago and mistakenly stored in their offices in the heart of midtown Manhattan all that time, officials said Thursday.
The material — identified in inventory files as phosgene, a chemical substance used in World War I weapons — was discovered Aug. 24. It was only identified on Wednesday because it was marked simply with an inventory number, and officials had to check the many records in their vast archives, said Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman for the U.N. inspection agency.
U.N. and U.S. officials said the material posed no threat to anyone's health or safety.