Briefly

INDIA

Kashmiris protest land transfer

SRINAGAR | Tens of thousands of Kashmiris filled the streets for a fourth day of protests Thursday, after police killings during earlier demonstrations enflamed their anger over the transfer of land to a Hindu shrine in this Muslim-majority region.

Protesters clashed with riot police in several parts of Srinagar, the main city of India’s portion of Kashmir. Police responded to rock-throwers by firing live ammunition and tear gas into the air in an attempt to disperse the mobs, police said.

Three people have been killed and dozens more wounded since Monday as police try to quell protests that erupted over the transfer of 99 acres of land by the state government to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, a trust running a popular Hindu shrine.

Protesters accuse the Indian government of planning to build Hindu settlements in India’s only Muslim majority state in order to change the demographic balance in the region.

NEPAL

Maoists set to form government

KATMANDU | Nepal’s Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala announced his long-delayed resignation Thursday, clearing the way for the formation of a new coalition government led by former communist rebels.

Mr. Koirala had refused for months to step down and make way for a new government led by the former rebels, who won the most seats in the assembly.

The former guerrillas, formally known as the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), resigned from the interim government two weeks ago in an effort to force Mr. Koirala, a member of the rival Nepali Congress party, to quit.

Mr. Koirala has not given a reason for delaying his resignation. But in the months after the election, he had pushed to become president, a post that is to be created by the assembly. The Maoists have resisted, saying someone other than Mr. Koirala should fill the presidency.

PHILIPPINES

Kin bid farewell to ferry victims

SIBUYAN ISLAND | Relatives said goodbye to their missing kin at the site of a capsized ferry in the central Philippines on Thursday fearing they will not see them again; dead or alive.

Hundreds of corpses are believed trapped in the seven-story Princess of the Stars, which ran aground and flipped over with 865 passengers and crew on board during Typhoon Fengshen on Saturday.

The overall death toll from the sixth typhoon to hit the Philippines this storm season could top 1,300, including nearly 500 people killed in a torrent of flooding in the center and south of the archipelago.

MALAYSIA

Illegals in Borneo to be deported

KUALA LUMPUR | Malaysia announced Wednesday a massive operation to deport tens of thousands of Filipino and Indonesian illegal migrants from Borneo island where they are blamed for drugs and crime.

Sandwiched by the Philippines in the north, and Indonesia’s Kalimantan to the south, the resource-rich Sabah state is a magnet for immigrant workers who for decades have come to labor on construction sites and oil palm plantations.

Deputy Prime Minister Mohamed Najib bin Abdul Razak said authorities will also bolster security along Malaysia’s land and sea borders with the Philippines and Indonesia to prevent further illegal crossings.

Sabah and neighboring Sarawak state make up Malaysia’s half of the vast island of Borneo, which is shared with Indonesia.

Authorities say there are 130,000 illegal migrants in Sabah, but local politicians put the figure as high as 500,000.

Mr. Najib said that since the 1990s, at least 300,000 illegal migrants have been deported from there.

From wire dispatches and staff reports