Beijing

Strong earthquake hits China’s northwest

A strong earthquake jolted a sparsely populated region of China’s northwest early today near its border with Tajikistan, the official Xinhua News Agency said. No deaths or injuries were immediately reported.

The 5.9-magnitude quake struck Akto county on the mountainous western edge of the Muslim region of Xinjiang at 7:16 a.m., Xinhua said.

It said the epicenter was about 80 miles southwest of Kashgar, the nearest city.

Moscow

Sunk nuclear sub can’t be raised until next year

The decommissioned nuclear submarine that sank in the Barents Sea while en route to a scrapyard can’t be raised until next year, the Russian navy’s deputy chief said Monday.

The submarine K-159 went down Saturday during a fierce storm while being towed to a port on the Kola Peninsula where its reactor was to be removed and dismantled and the rest of the ship scrapped. Nine of the 10 men aboard were killed.

Navy and Atomic Energy Ministry officials were quoted by Russian news agencies Monday as saying that radiation levels remained normal in the sinking area, some 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle where Finland and Norway abut Russia.

Tokyo

Legless climber begins ascent of Mount Fuji

A paraplegic mountaineer headed up the lava-strewn slopes of Mount Fuji on Monday, pulling himself toward the summit in a bid to make the first such ascent of the 12,385-foot peak.

Keegan Reilly, 22, from Soldotna, Alaska, hopes to make the normally five-hour trip to the chilly summit in six days using a custom-made arm-powered, three-wheeled bicycle.

Reilly set off Monday morning from an elevation of 5,460 feet and scaled about 900 feet before camping on the rocky trail in a sleeping bag beneath a starry sky.

Accompanying him was an eight-man support team.

Reilly was disabled in a 1996 car accident. He is making the ascent with a titanium-tubed bicycle that cost $35,000 and is powered by arm cranks.

Haiti

Weekend flood leaves 11 dead, 24 missing

Torrential rains that burst river banks and flooded the western city of St. Marc last week left 11 people dead and 24 missing, civil defense officials said Monday.

Most of the damage occurred along a one-mile stretch of the Grande Riviere, which flows through the city located 45 miles northwest of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Rains on Friday pelted Haiti’s west-central Artibonite District where treeless hills were unable to absorb the water. Streams and rivers swelled and gushed toward the seaside St. Marc.

India

Surge in rebel violence claims lives of 17

Suspected Islamic rebels set off an explosion in a Himalayan tunnel and fought gunbattles across Indian Kashmir in a surge of violence Monday that killed 17 people, police and army officials said.

A bomb went off in Jawahar Tunnel on the highway connecting Srinagar and Jammu — the summer and winter capitals of Jammu-Kashmir state — before bomb disposal experts could diffuse it. Two experts were killed and two soldiers were wounded, police said.

Separately, patrolling Indian army soldiers fought four separate gunbattles elsewhere in Kashmir, killing four soldiers and eight rebels. Three civilians were killed in the crossfire.