4 die, thousands flee as floods lash Philippines

MANILA • Four people were killed and thousands forced to flee their homes when floods inundated large parts of the northern Philippines.

Heavy monsoon rains lashed the largely agricultural provinces for days, bringing floods that left roads impassable and forcing about 3,000 people to evacuate, government civil defence officers said yesterday.

At least four people died because of the rains, including a six-month-old boy buried by a landslide in the northern province of Pangasinan.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Jailed Tibet monk 'died of heart attack'

BEIJING • A prominent Tibetan monk whose death in jail in China last week raised new questions about the rights of the Tibetan community had suffered a heart attack after repeatedly refusing to see doctors or take medicine, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, 65, died at Dazhu County People's Hospital in south-western China's Sichuan province, near the prison where he had been serving a life sentence for "crimes of terror and incitement of separatism".

REUTERS

Peking Man knew how to use fire: China study

BEIJING • New evidence found at an archeological site in Beijing suggests that the Peking Man, an ancestor of modern man, was able to use fire over 600,000 years ago.

The findings were released last Friday, after archeologists spent three years excavating the Zhoukoudian fossil site in the suburbs of Beijing.

A fire site and sintering soil, as well as burnt rocks and bones, were uncovered there, according to the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing.

XINHUA