Lebanon

Lebanese mother gives birth to sextuplets

A Lebanese woman gave birth Saturday to sextuplets — four girls and two boys, hospital officials said. All appeared to be in good health.

Doctors delivered the babies by Caesarean section 30 weeks into Soumaya Ghosson’s pregnancy, officials at the suburban Beirut Al-Hayat Hospital said.

The babies and mother are “doing fine,” a hospital official said on condition of anonymity.

The babies weigh between 1.1 pounds and 2.4 pounds. The girls are Mariyam (above), Batool, Aya and Hitaf, while the boys are called Ali and Abdelrahman, hospital officials said.

The parents were not available for comment.

Peru

Bus drives off cliff, killing at least 30

A passenger bus plunged off a 1,000-foot cliff in the Andes mountains Friday, killing at least 30 people and wounding 17, rescue workers said Saturday.

The accident took place on a mountain highway 150 miles northeast of Lima. The bus was headed from Huanuco to La Union, Huanuco fire chief Leoncio Pardave said.

The causes of the accident were not immediately known.

Pardave said the exact number of victims was not yet known because the difficult terrain delayed rescue efforts. Also, several people had climbed aboard or gotten off while the bus was traveling.

Nigeria

Ferry hits bridge; dozens believed killed

A ferry hit a bridge in eastern Nigeria and capsized, and authorities said Saturday they believed dozens were dead.

Fifty of the up to 100 people aboard were rescued after the accident Tuesday, said Aminu Abah, a spokesman for the eastern state of Ademawa.

The ferry had been traveling from the town of Neman on the Benue River.

News of the accident in the remote region reached Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, only Saturday.

Ferry accidents with high death tolls are frequent in Africa, and overcrowding and poor maintenance often play a part. There was no immediate indication of either in Tuesday’s sinking.

Beijing

Ex-president of main news agency dies at 82

Mu Qing, 82, a former president of the Chinese government’s Xinhua News Agency and a veteran war correspondent who covered World War II and China’s 1949 revolution, died on Saturday, the agency announced.

Mu was president of Xinhua from 1982 to 1992, the agency said on its Web site.

Born in 1921 in the central province of Henan, he joined the Communist Party in 1939. He became a war correspondent for the party’s Eighth Route Army in 1942 when it was a guerrilla force fighting invading Japanese troops.

Puerto Rico

Tropical Storm Mindy weakens, spins away

Tropical Storm Mindy weakened Saturday as it spun away from the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas, turning into the open Atlantic away from inhabited islands.

The storm’s maximum sustained winds were near 40 mph with higher gusts.

The rains battered Puerto Rico on Friday, leaving 30,000 homes without electricity, damaging roads and washing out small bridges. No injuries were reported.