World Briefs

Clinton reaches out to Laos VIENTIANE – Hillary Clinton became the first US secretary of state to visit Laos in more than five decades, gauging whether a place the United States pummelled with bombs during the Vietnam War could evolve into a new foothold of American influence in Asia.

Clinton met with the communist government’s prime minister and foreign minister in the capital of Vientiane yesterday, part of a weeklong diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia.
The goal is to bolster America’s standing in some of the fastest growing markets of the world, and counter China’s expanding economic, diplomatic and military dominance of the region.

Tigers kill man who scaled zoo fence
COPENHAGEN – A man was killed by tigers at a zoo on Wednesday after he scaled a fence and crossed a moat to get into their enclosure in the Danish capital Copenhagen, police said.
The man, in his early 20s, was savaged by three tigers after he broke into Copenhagen Zoo in the early hours. He was dead when staff arrived for work.
They said he was not Danish but his nationality was not yet known. He had a Denmark resident’s permit.

UK drops Lords reform vote
LONDON – Facing its first major parliamentary defeat, Britain’s coalition government on Tuesday at the last minute dropped plans for a controversial vote on reforming parliament’s unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords.
The government seemed set to lose the vote after scores of lawmakers within Prime Minister David Cameron’s ruling Conservative party threatened to rebel over the plan to make the Lords a mostly elected, rather than appointed, chamber.
On Tuesday evening, however, the government won a separate vote on the principle behind a mainly elected chamber with a majority of 338.

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