Death toll rises from flooding in Sudan

Flooding has killed at least six more people in Sudan and forced thousands from their homes, officials said Monday.

The deaths, which occurred since Saturday, brought to 41 the number killed over the past month as a result of unusually strong seasonal rains that have caused flooding in parts of Sudan, officials said. The high waters have also damaged or destroyed thousands of homes.

United Nations agencies and international aid groups say they are dispatching aid. The rains have also caused mudslides that have ravaged 10,000 homes on the outskirts of the capital, Khartoum, where the White and Blue Niles meet to form Africa's largest rivers, said Abdul Jaba Hussein, the head of the anti-flooding commission.

In Renk, a town on the White Nile in southern Sudan, floods "destroyed 1,518 huts and killed at least 600 cattle, affecting some 4,729 families, including 2,027 children" said Deng Chul Deng, the acting commissioner for the province.

Moscow

Warrant sought for Putin critic

Russian prosecutors have asked a Moscow court to issue an arrest warrant for businessman Boris Berezovsky in connection with a new criminal case against the outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, authorities said Monday.

The case, which dates back to the 1990s, comes as the Kremlin steps up its efforts to discredit Berezovsky, who has been granted political asylum by Britain.

The Russian government — under pressure to extradite the suspect in the London poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko, a Berezovsky associate — accuses Britain of a double standard in refusing to hand over the exiled tycoon for trial in Russia.

The Prosecutor General's Office asked for Berezovsky's arrest on charges he stole $13 million from the SBS-Agro banking giant.

Johannesburg, South Africa

Wildfires kill 18, damage acreage

Wildfires sweeping across parts of eastern South Africa have killed at least 18 people and damaged thousands of acres of land, according to officials and news reports.

Officials estimate about 74,000 acres have been damaged near the tourist towns of Sabie and Graskop. Four fires there were still burning out of control, the South African Press Association reported Monday.

Meanwhile, heavy rain and flooding in the Western Cape damaged thousands of homes, affecting about 30,000 people, officials said. Cleanup operations have been under way since the worst of the rain ended Sunday, while the city's disaster-management services prepared for more heavy rain.

The Press Association said five firefighters in the province died Sunday when they could not get their vehicle away from the flames. An additional 13 people died in fires that swept through parts of the east coast province of KwaZulu-Natal over the weekend.

Brasilia, Brazil

Landless people occupy ranch

At least 100 landless people have taken over a ranch in southwestern Brazil owned by South Korea religious leader Reverend Sun Myung Moon and evicted his followers, police said Monday.

The farm workers stormed onto the ranch Friday night, changing the locks on the gates, raiding the property's headquarters and kicking out everyone except a lone South Korean who peacefully resisted, local media reported. The man later became ill and was taken to a hospital.

The 7,410-acre Jamaica Ranch was used mainly for grazing cattle by a few dozen members of Moon's Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, said Luis Carlos Bonelli, an official for Brazil's agrarian land-reform agency, Incra.

Incra had claimed the ranch and two adjacent properties for landless farm workers in 2004, but a local prosecutor blocked a license needed to settle them and their families, Bonelli said.

Since then, almost 300 families have been camped out at the edges of the ranch, waiting to move onto the property and begin farming.

Moon and his followers have been buying land in the area since the 1990s and today own some 173,000 acres in Mato Grosso do Sul, the western state where the Jamaica Ranch is located, Bonelli said.

Also

A raging forest fire has destroyed thousands of acres of woodland on Spain's Gran Canaria island and forced the evacuation Monday of more than 2,000 people, authorities said. A forest ranger was arrested for allegedly starting the fire deliberately, authorities said.

Seattle Times news services