Search for missing ends

SUBIC BAY NAVAL BASE, Philippines - The U.S. Navy ended its search for about 125 people missing in the South China Sea after their ferry sank in bad weather. Placido Nacua, operations chief at the U.S. Subic Bay Naval Base, said the search involving the a P-3 Orion anti-submarine patrol craft and four Navy and Air Force helicopters was called off because no more survivors or bodies had been found.

Quake rocke Pakistan

KARACHI, Pakistan - The second earthquake to hit Pakistan's largest city in four days sent thousands of people hurrying into the streets to seek safety. Government officials said no deaths or serious injuries were reported. The officials said the earthquake that rattled the city of 7 million registered 4.8 on the Richter scale.

Bhopal disaster studied

NEW DELHI, India - A report submitted to the Indian Parliament blamed faulty plant design and insufficient safety precautions for the Bhopal gas leak disaster that killed at least 1,700 people. The authors of the report also rejected claims that the Dec. 3 , 1984, gas leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant could have been the result of sabotage, as the company had suggested.

Octuplets' chances bad

ANKARA, Turkey - A 25-year-old woman gave birth to octuplets in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, but six died within 12 hours, the semi-official news agency Anatolia reported. It said the five boys and three girls were delivered by Caesarean section and were 12 weeks premature. Anatolia quoted Dr. Fikret Cakmaoglu as saying the surviving boy and girl, who weighed two pounds and slightly more than one pound, were in an incubator but had little chance of survival.

Britain plans drug push

LONDON - Britain unveiled major anti-drug legislation patterned after the "remarkably successful" U.S. laws allowing police to seize the money and property of illegal drug traffickers. The Drug Trafficking Offenses bill to be submitted to Parliament next month would give police and the courts new powers to trace, freeze and confiscate the proceeds of drug dealing in money or property, at home or abroad.

Brazil halts whale hunts

BRASILIA, Brazil - President Jose Sarney banned whale hunting off the Brazilian coast for five years, saying the decision was the result of letters he had received from thousands of children asking his help in saving the seafaring mammals. The decree signed by Sarney takes effect Jan. 1. Navy Minister Adm. Henrique Saboia said that in 1985 a total of 598 whales were killed off the Brazilian coast.

Italy harbors Albanians

ROME - Six members of an Albanian family who slipped past police have taken refuge in the Italian Embassy in the Albanian capital of Tirana and are asking to leave the communist country, the Foreign Ministry said. The Foreign Ministry issued the statement in response to a report of the incident published by the newspaper Il Giorno.