In brief: Asia

Asia

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A powerful earthquake struck deep under the sea in eastern Indonesia on Saturday, causing panic and sending residents running out of their homes, officials and witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The quake had a magnitude of 7.0, but at a depth of 86 miles was too far below the earth’s surface to cause a tsunami, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A Malaysian woman who gave birth aboard a plane said Saturday that doctors are expected to release her son from a hospital next week. Liew Siaw Hsia had been flying home Wednesday when she started having labor pains. A doctor on the flight helped her deliver while the plane was still 2,000 feet in the air. AirAsia said it would give Liew and her child free flights for life.

MOSCOW — A Russian airliner with 279 people aboard landed safely Saturday in the Russian capital following reports of possible damage to its landing gear, an airport spokesman said. Oleg Pesko, chief of the Vnukovo Airport press center, said the Vladivostok Avia Airbus A-330 made a nonemergency landing at Vnukovo Airport. There were no injuries.

SEOUL, South Korea — The Koreas should help resolve the dispute over North Korea’s nuclear programs, a South Korean official said, as an envoy for the North met with a U.S. government negotiator in likely pursuit of bilateral talks with Washington. The U.S. says it is willing to have direct talks with the North if it leads to halting North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs.

Europe

LONDON — The ashes of the last Titanic survivor have been scattered at the English port where the ship began its ill-fated maiden voyage in 1912. Millvina Dean, who was 9 weeks old when her parents took her aboard the ship, died May 31 at age 97. Her ashes were scattered on Saturday at Southampton Docks in southern England.

Middle East

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A Saudi court on Saturday sentenced a female journalist to 60 lashes after she had been charged with involvement in a TV show in which a Saudi man publicly talked about sex. Rozanna al-Yami, 22, is believed to be the first Saudi woman journalist to be given such a punishment. Al-Yami, who worked as a coordinator for the program but has denied working on the episode, said the judge dropped the charges against her but still handed down the lashing sentence "as a deterrence.”

BEIRUT — Lebanese chefs prepared a massive plate of hummus weighing more than two tons Saturday that broke a world record organizers said was held by Israel — a bid to reaffirm proprietorship over the popular Middle Eastern dip. Some 300 chefs were involved in preparing Saturday’s massive ceramic plate of hummus in downtown Beirut.

Africa

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Police loyal to President Robert Mugabe raided a house used by the prime minister’s supporters Saturday and accused them of hoarding weapons in a move that is likely to push Zimbabwe’s fragile coalition government closer to collapse.

The Associated Press

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