In a dramatic roll-call vote, Japanese lawmakers today rejected Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's long-cherished goal of privatizing state-owned Japan Post, striking a blow to the heart of his ambitious economic reforms and probably sending the country to the polls.

Propelled by a significant block of Koizumi's own Liberal Democratic Party, a tense upper house voted 125-108 against the prime minister's bill, throwing Japanese politics into confusion. Koizumi had repeatedly warned legislators that he would respond to a defeat by immediately dissolving parliament and calling a general election, probably for Sept. 11, even though his mandate runs until fall 2006.

Shanghai, China

Coal mine floods; 102 miners trapped

A coal mine flooded in southern China, trapping 102 miners more than 1,000 feet underground yesterday as rescuers used water pumps in an effort to reach them. There were no reports of deaths or injuries.

The accident occurred in a tunnel 1,378 feet underground at the privately owned Daxing Colliery in Meizhou City in Guangdong province, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing a local official.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, both of whom have promised stronger efforts to improve mine safety, had ordered local authorities to "take substantial steps and spare no efforts" to save the trapped miners.

Toronto

Pilot could do little to stop plane

Investigators studying Tuesday's Air France crash at the Toronto airport said it would have been virtually impossible for the pilot to have stopped the airliner after landing too far down the rain-slick runway.

They were also investigating why two emergency chutes failed to inflate when the doors were popped open, leaving many passengers to jump up to 16 feet to safety.

Air France Flight 358 from Paris landed amid heavy thunderstorms, skidding off the runway at Canada's busiest airport and then slamming into a ravine and catching on fire. None of the 309 passengers and crew members died, though at least 43 people were injured and several remained hospitalized yesterday.

"The runway is about 9,000 feet long, so touching down long at 4,000 feet ... under those conditions I am pretty convinced that there was no way the aircraft was going to be able to stop before the end of the runway," said Real Levasseur, chief of Canada's Transportation Safety Board team investigating the crash.

Nouakchott, Mauritania

Mauritania's self-declared head of state named a new prime minister yesterday to replace the former premier who resigned along with his Cabinet after last week's coup. A judge freed 21 people who had been detained for plotting against the ousted regime, a U.S. ally.

Junta leader Col. Ely Ould Mohamed Vall named Sidi Mohamed Ould Boubacar, 49, as prime minister. Boubacar returned to Mauritania on Saturday from France, where he had been serving as ambassador since 2004.

The appointment followed the resignation earlier yesterday of former Prime Minister Sghair Ould M'Bareck and his Cabinet.

Compiled from The Associated Press, Reuters and the Los Angeles Times