World Briefs: Weinstein hit with new sexual assault charge

LOS ANGELES • Harvey Weinstein was charged in Los Angeles on Friday with a third sexual assault case, and prosecutors there said they have started the process of seeking his extradition from New York, where the former film producer is serving prison time for rape.

The one-time Hollywood mogul was newly charged with a single felony count of sexual battery by restraint.

The 68-year-old had already been charged in Los Angeles with rape, sexual penetration by force and forcible oral copulation for an alleged encounter with one woman, and with sexual battery of a second woman, both in February 2013.

REUTERS

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2 die in India power plant's dyke collapse

CHENNAI • Two people died and four others are missing and feared dead, after a fly ash dyke gave way at a coal-fired power plant in Singrauli district in central India on Friday, the third such incident in the district in a year.

Five villagers and a worker at the site owned by Reliance Power were swept up in a flow of fly ash - a powdery by-product of burning pulverised coal - which travelled at least 6km, said Mr K.V.S. Chaudhary, the top public official in the Singrauli district.

REUTERS

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US broadcaster rebuts White House criticism

WASHINGTON • Publicly funded US broadcaster Voice of America (VOA) has rubbished criticism from the White House that it is promoting Chinese "foreign propaganda" on the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement on Friday, President Donald Trump's administration claimed VOA pushed Beijing's message by tweeting a video of celebrations at the end of Wuhan's quarantine measures, and noting the United States had surpassed China's death toll.

"VOA too often speaks for America's adversaries - not its citizens," the White House claimed.

VOA director Amanda Bennett pushed back at the criticism, saying: "VOA has thoroughly debunked much of the information coming from the Chinese government and government-controlled media."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE