LONDON - POLAND'S Robert Kubica will replace Spain's double Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso at Renault next season, the team said in a statement on Wednesday.
No details were given about the length of the contract, although Renault said it was from 2010 onwards.
TOKYO - A POWERFUL typhoon approached Japan's main islands on Wednesday, closing car factories, disrupting flights and threatening heavily populated industrial centres with torrential rain and strong winds.
Typhoon Melor may be the most powerful storm to hit Japan's main islands in more than 10 years, the Meteorological Agency said, prompting media reports recalling a deadly 2004 storm that killed 95 people and brought transport links to a standstill.
PADANG - RELIEF workers struggled to reach Indonesian quake survivors still without food or shelter a week after the disaster, while foreign rescue teams packed up their high-tech equipment on Wednesday and prepared to pull out.
Aid has been pouring into the shattered West Sumatran city of Padang since the Sept 30 earthquake, but the scale of the disaster, heavy rain and damaged infrastructure have meant it has been slow to reach outlying areas.
KUALA LUMPUR - THE third of three young siblings stung by hornets on Malaysia's Borneo island has died, said an official.
A spokesman for eastern Sarawak state's general hospital said the eight-year-old girl died on Tuesday night. Her younger brother and sister died shortly after they were attacked by hornets last weekend while walking outdoors with their mother, who is in a critical condition at an intensive care unit.
