IN BRIEF (Page 11)

The Netherlands

New Van Gogh identified

The Van Gogh Museum said it has identified a long-lost Vincent Van Gogh painting that spent years in a Norwegian attic believed to be by another painter. It is the first full-size canvas by the Dutch master discovered since 1928. Sunset at Montmajour depicts trees, bushes and sky, painted with Van Gogh's familiar thick brush strokes.

Nigeria

Shell to begin talks over spill

Shell officials on Monday will begin talks in Nigeria's southern city of Port Harcourt with representatives for the Bodo community on compensation and cleanup five years after one of the worst oil spills in Nigeria's history. Some experts say the two spills that started in 2008 caused the largest loss of a mangrove habitat ever caused by an oil spill, affecting about 30,000 inhabitants in the Niger Delta area since then.

France

4 thieves take $2.6m in jewelry

Four men rammed their car into an upmarket jewelry store in central Paris on Monday, smashing the shop window and making off with a 2-million-euro ($2.6-million) booty, a police source said. The heist near the upscale Place Vendome is the latest to hit France after a spate of high-profile robberies in the southern resort of Cannes.

Argentina

Man found after long absence

Argentine authorities have rescued a 58-year-old Uruguayan man who had been lost in the Andes mountains since May. Raul Gomez Cincunegui was spotted at the Sardina mountain shelter on Sunday, at an altitude of some 4,500 meters in the Los Patos Sur valley. Police then transferred him by helicopter to a hospital in the eponymous capital of western San Juan province.

India

Troops deployed after deadly riots

Hundreds of troops have been dispatched to India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh after 28 people were killed in a weekend of communal violence, police said on Monday. Authorities declared a high security alert after clashes between Muslims and Hindus in Uttar Pradesh, which has witnessed some of the country's worst religious riots in recent decades.

The Philippines

Muslim rebels take hostages

About 200 Muslim rebels were holding nearly 300 people hostage on Monday after clashing with government troops and rampaging through coastal communities in the southern Philippines, leaving at least eight people dead, officials said. The fighting occurred after troops backed by tanks blocked the Moro National Liberation Front guerrillas from marching into Zamboanga to raise their flag at city hall.

AP-AFP

(China Daily 09/10/2013 page11)