SPANISH KING HAS SUCCESSFUL HIP OPERATION
MADRID: Spain’s 74-year-old King Juan Carlos had successful hip replacement surgery on Friday (Saturday in Manila), the royal palace said, after two operations on the other hip caused by a fall during a controversial African elephant-hunting safari.

The left hip replacement surgery was needed because the king had been suffering from arthritis, the statement said. The Spanish monarch was kept in hospital overnight for observation and doctors will decide how much longer he needs to stay. The monarch first revealed the need for the operation during a Spain-Latin America summit in Cadiz, southern Spain, last week. It was the sixth operation in two years for the king.

FOURTEEN KILLED IN CHINESE RESTAURANT BLAST
BEIJING: Fourteen people were killed and 47 injured when a blast tore through a restaurant in northern China, state media said on Saturday, with initial investigations pointing to a gas leak as the likely cause. The explosion occurred in the city of Jinzhong in Shanxi province, which lies to the west of Beijing, on Friday evening. The blast shattered windows of buildings near the two-storey restaurant, which served hot pot, a popular Chinese kind of stew. Local investigators said that 17 of the injured were in a serious condition. China has a notoriously poor health and safety record, blamed on a combination of poor regulations, lax enforcement and corruption.

SEVEN DIE IN BLAST NEAR PAKISTAN SHIITE PROCESSION
PESHAWAR: A bomb exploded near a Shiite religious procession in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing seven people including four children, hospital officials said. At least 30 people, including five other children, were also wounded when the remote controlled bomb packed with ball bearings exploded on the outskirts of Dera Ismail Khan City in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The blast went off as people from the minority Shiite Muslim community were gathering to mark the anniversary of the death of the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson Imam Hussain in 680. AFP