Gas-price protest paralyzes major city in Bolivia

A strike and a demonstration that drew hundreds of thousands of people paralyzed Santa Cruz yesterday as the city joined an anti-government protest that has elicited a pledge from the president to resign if things turn violent.

The protest in Santa Cruz, a city of more than 1 million, was against gasoline-price increases and added to demonstrations Monday in the neighboring city of El Alto. Santa Cruz is about 470 miles southeast of La Paz.

Strike organizers in El Alto, a city of 750,000, have demanded the government drop gasoline-price increases ranging from 10 to 23 percent. Yesterday, the government agreed to one demand made by the El Alto protesters by canceling the contract with the French-controlled utility that operates the city's water system.

But the government was adamant on maintaining the gas-price increase, saying inexpensive gasoline in Bolivia encourages smuggling and threatens to produce a supply crunch at home.

Kiev, Ukraine

Yushchenko rival stalls inauguration

The loser of Ukraine's presidential election staved off his rival's inauguration for another day yesterday by persuading the Supreme Court to block publication of the result, editors of the country's official newspapers said.

Although Viktor Yushchenko was declared the official winner Monday, former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych has refused to concede. He contends there was widespread fraud in the Dec. 26 revote, a mirror of the strategy Yushchenko used to gain the annulment of an earlier election in which Yanukovych was declared winner.

But before Yushchenko can be inaugurated, the result must be published in one of the country's two official newspapers. Senior editors at two papers, Holos Ukrainy and Uryadovy Kurier, said both had been ordered by the Supreme Court not to print the outcome yet.

Yanukovych, who lost the vote by nearly 8 percentage points, said his allies would appeal to the Supreme Court to demand "the annulment of the so-called rerun."

Beijing

25 die in explosion at fireworks factory

Twenty-five people were killed and nine injured in an explosion yesterday at a fireworks factory in northern China, officials said.

The cause of the explosion at the Xiangliu firecracker factory in Shanxi province was being investigated, the official Xinhua News Agency said, and authorities were looking for the owner of the factory, who had fled.

Adelaide, Australia

Wildfire kills 10 in South Australia

Residents jumped into the sea to escape a wildfire that killed at least 10 people in southern Australia, emergency officials said today.

The blaze on the Eyre Peninsula, about 250 miles west of Adelaide, was the worst of several wildfires reported in the state of South Australia, where temperatures have topped 111 degrees at the height of the Southern Hemisphere summer.

The peninsula fire was reported late Monday and contained by firefighters but flared again yesterday before blazing out of control, police spokeswoman Kylie Walsh said.

Police found the bodies of eight people who were burned in their cars as they tried to flee the blaze. Two more bodies were found today on a burned-out property, Walsh said. Six more people were missing.

Hanoi, Vietnam

Death from bird flu may be fourth in two weeks

An 18-year-old woman in Vietnam has died of a suspected case of bird flu in what would be the country's fourth death from the virus in two weeks, a doctor said yesterday.

The woman from the southern province of Hau Giang died Monday, said Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan, deputy director of the Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Hospital in Can Tho, a nearby city.

Medical experts fear bird flu might mutate and create the world's next influenza pandemic. So far, there has been no concrete evidence of human-to-human transmission of the disease. Most patients have had contact with sick birds.

The virus has killed 23 people in Vietnam and 12 people in Thailand in the past year.