Taiwan

Taipei now has world’s tallest skyscraper

Taiwanese officials celebrated the completion of the world’s tallest skyscraper Friday after crews installed the pinnacle on the 1,676-foot-tall building.

The 101-story structure — which includes a mall, office space and an observatory — won’t formally open until next year in east Taipei. Called Taipei 101, the skyscraper looks like a tall stack of gift boxes. But the developers liken it to a bamboo shoot with notched sections.

The building is about 165 feet taller than the world’s former highest office building, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The highest freestanding tower remains the CN Tower, a 1,815-foot communications structure and outlook point in Toronto.

Beijing

Quake in southwest kills three, injures 46

A strong earthquake rumbled through a remote, seismically active area of China’s mountainous southwest, killing three people and felling at least 50 houses in an ethnic minority enclave, the federal government and local officials said Friday.

The magnitude-6.1 quake struck Dayao County in Yunnan province at 8:28 p.m. Thursday, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing local disaster officials.

Fourteen people were seriously injured and 32 others suffered less severe injuries, according to government figures and a woman who answered the phone at Dayao County’s government offices and wouldn’t give her name.

At least two of the deaths were reported by Xinhua to have occurred in Tanhua Township, near the quake epicenter.

India

Muslim militants hole up after two guards killed

Islamic militant suspects holed up Friday in an office and shopping complex after an attack that killed two guards at the home of the top elected official in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

A standoff at the complex continued through the night and Indian authorities said they were prepared to blow up the four-story building at daybreak. It was not clear how many militants were inside.

Authorities said the militants were from Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a Muslim group that seeks to merge India’s portion of Kashmir with neighboring Pakistan or make it independent.

The militants opened fire Friday morning at paramilitary soldiers guarding the home of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, who was not there at the time.

Berlin

Parliament approves labor reform, tax cut

German lawmakers Friday approved an $18 billion tax cut for next year and reductions in jobless benefits, giving Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder a boost as he seeks unpopular reforms to revive Europe’s largest economy.

Both votes in the lower house of parliament were key parts of Schroeder’s efforts to end three years of economic stagnation. The measures will increase pressure on the unemployed to take low-wage jobs.

Schroeder, who left a European Union summit a day early for the debate in parliament’s lower house, said the result was evidence his squabbling center-left coalition “stands together when it comes to modernizing Germany.”

“We need the ability to take action demonstrated here in order to give our country a good future,” he told reporters.

Kazakhstan

Russia launch makes up for loss of shuttle

The countdown began Friday to the launch of a Soyuz capsule carrying a Russian and American team to the international space station, a mission that underscores Russia’s crucial role in space flight.

The launch early today comes three days after China became the world’s third spacefaring nation by sending its first astronaut into orbit.

Russia’s state space commission declared all systems ready and gave the formal go-ahead for today’s blastoff.

Both NASA and the European Space Agency are counting on the launch, which is now their only means into space as a result of the Columbia space shuttle disaster.

Since the Columbia disintegrated on Feb. 1 over Texas, the Russians have made one of the Soyuz capsule’s three seats available to an American astronaut.