SiTU GLOBAL NEWS

JANUARY 18, 2014

SYDNEY: Extreme heat and high winds fanned dozens of bushfires across Australia on Friday, prompting hundreds to flee their homes in some of the worst conditions seen since Black Saturday in 2009.

One person died in the Grampians bushland in the southeastern state of Victoria, about 300 km (186 miles) west of Melbourne, where bushfires are burning out of control amid temperatures which have hit above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees F), destroying or damaging houses.

NEW DELHI: Delhiites shivered through a cold, grey and damp Friday, with the temperature not rising beyond a numbing 12.9 degrees celsius, the lowest maximum recorded this season. Intermittent light drizzle from early afternoon onwards — which the weatherman said would continue till Saturday evening — just added to the misery.

18 killed, several injured in Mumbai stampede

MUMBAI: At least 18 people were killed in a stampede that broke out on early Saturday near the Malabar Hill residence of Dawoodi Bohra spiritual leader Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, who died on Friday morning, officials said.
According to police and BMC disaster control officials, the stampede took place around 1.30 am.

ISLAMABAD: The World Health Organization on Friday declared Pakistan's troubled northwestern city of Peshawar as the world's "largest reservoir" of polio and called for urgent action to boost vaccination.

Almost every polio case in 2013 in where Pakistan, one of only three countries the crippling disease remains endemic, could be linked genetically to strains of the virus circulating in Peshawar, said the WHO.