Venezuela: Judge orders house arrest for anti-Chavez strike leader

A leading opponent of President Hugo Chavez who helped lead a two-month national strike was put under house arrest Sunday after a judge struck down a treason charge but left standing two other serious counts.

Carlos Fernandez, president of the Fedecamaras business chamber, was seized Wednesday by federal agents. An arrest order was issued for another strike leader who remains in hiding.

A judge struck down three of the charges against Fernandez, including treason, in a 13-hour closed-door hearing that ended early Sunday. The court upheld charges of rebellion and incitement, said Pedro Berrizbeitia, one of the business leader’s defense lawyers.

California: Gas prices up again as expert predicts price pressure easing

Gas prices rose 7 cents a gallon in the past two weeks, pushing pump prices to near record levels, but the upward pressure on prices may be easing, an industry analyst said Sunday.

The average weighted price for gas nationwide, including all grades and taxes, was approximately $1.70 per gallon Friday, according to the Lundberg Survey of 8,000 stations nationwide. That price is within 7 cents of $1.77, the all-time high recorded by the survey on May 18, 2001.

Increased production in Venezuela, the approach of warmer weather, and the reopening of various U.S. refineries that had been idled for annual maintenance should help slow or end the price spiral, Trilby Lundberg said.

China: Deadly quake strikes west

A powerful earthquake struck China’s remote west Monday, collapsing more than a 1,000 homes and buildings and killing at least 94 people, a disaster official said.

The magnitude-6.8 quake struck an area of the Xinjiang region near China’s mountainous border with Kyrgyzstan at 10:03 a.m. (8:03 p.m. CST Sunday), according to officials.

“The death toll might increase,” said Zhang Yong, director of disaster prevention for the Xinjiang Seismology Bureau. He spoke by telephone from the region’s capital, Urumqi.

The area is about 1,750 miles west of Beijing.

More than 1,000 houses and school buildings collapsed in one village in Bachu County, where the earthquake was centered, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., reported the quake’s magnitude as 6.3 and said its center lay some 21 miles below the surface.