Belgrade, May 19
The Balkans braced for more misery as the death toll from the worst floods in a century rose to 47 and rising waters forced thousands more to flee their homes.

Muddy waters from the Sava River have submerged houses, churches, mosques and roads in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia after record rainfall wreaked havoc across the central European region.

More than 60,000 people have been evacuated as dozens of towns and villages have been completely cut off by the torrents, and water levels are expected to rise further in the coming days.

Bosnian officials say about a million people, more than a quarter of the country’s population, have been affected after the heaviest rainfalls on record began last week.

Villages have been hit by landslides caused by the torrential rainfall while officials fear unexploded landmines and infectious diseases could pose fresh dangers.

Rescuers told of wrenching scenes as they finally reached cut-off villages, with dozens of people huddling on top of the tallest houses with no water or food.

“This is Armageddon, I can’t describe it otherwise,” Nedeljko Brankovic told AFP from Krupanj, a town in the southwestern town of Serbia.

“Houses are literally washed down and landslides are everywhere.” The death toll from the floods was raised to 47 Monday after two new victims were found overnight in a village near the western Serbian town of Sabac.

Neighbouring Croatia has also evacuated hundreds of people from along the river Sava. In Obrenovac, some 40 km from Belgrade, more than 8,000 people have been evacuated, one third of its population.

Svetlana Obojcic, 38, was rescued along with her neighbours from the top floor of her building.

“All 30 of us were in one flat for three days, without electricity,” said the mother of two as she firmly hugged her six-year old twins at a temporary shelter in the Belgrade suburb Sumice.

“We ate what we had, we did not have enough water, but at least we are dry now,” she said.

Authorities sealed off the town amid fears the flood waters, filled with debris and dead animals, could become a breeding ground for disease.

Local television footage filmed from a helicopter showed most of the city’s buildings submerged by the floods, with water swamping the lower floors of six-storey buildings.

“It is not safe for the inhabitants to return,” said Predrag Maric, chief of the emergency services.

Officials have appealed to residents to restrict their power use after water defences around the Nikola Tesla power plant, which produces around half of Serbia’s electricity, gave way.

The plant near Obrenovac is now only protected by temporary dikes built by thousands of volunteers along the Sava River. — AFP

Washington, May 19
In the first-ever charges against known state actors, the US today indicted five officers of China's powerful military for serious cybersecurity breaches and allegedly stealing trade secrets from six American entities including Westinghouse Electric.

The indictment alleged the Chinese People's Liberation Army hackers conspired to hack into American entities, to maintain unauthorised access to their computers and to steal information from those entities that would be useful to their competitors in China, including state-owned enterprises.

The alleged victim companies are Westinghouse Electric, Alcoa, Allegheny Technologies Incorporated, US Steel, the United Steelworkers Union and SolarWorld.

According to the Department of Justice, in some cases, it alleges, the conspirators stole trade secrets that would have been particularly beneficial to Chinese companies at the time they were stolen.

In other cases, it alleges, the conspirators also stole sensitive, internal communications that would provide a competitor, or an adversary in litigation, with insight into the strategy and vulnerabilities of the American entity.

Three of the five — Wang Dong, Sun Kailiang, Wen Xinyu, Huang Zhenyu and Gu Chunhui — were officers in Unit 61398 of the Third Department of the PLA.

The indictment alleges that Wang, Sun, and Wen, among others known and unknown to the grand jury, hacked or attempted to hack into US entities named in the indictment, while Huang and Gu supported their conspiracy by, among other things, managing infrastructure (domain account) used for hacking. — PTI

Stealing info The indictment alleged the Chinese People's Liberation Army hackers conspired to hack into American entities to maintain unauthorised access to their computers The alleged victim companies are Westinghouse Electric, Alcoa, Allegheny Technologies Incorporated, US Steel, the United Steelworkers Union and SolarWorld According to the Department of Justice, in some cases, it alleges, the conspirators stole trade secrets that would have been particularly beneficial to Chinese companies

Moscow, May 19
Russian President Vladimir Putin today ordered troops deployed near Ukraine to return to their home bases, while fighting continued in the eastern parts of the country. Putin specifically ordered Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to pull back forces involved in “planned spring” drills in the Rostov, Belgorod and Bryansk regions to their home bases, the Kremlin said.

The order appears to go further than a similar statement by the Russian leader two weeks ago that troops were being pulled back from the border to shooting ranges.

The three regions border Ukraine and the withdrawal of troops deployed there to other Russian provinces would signal a genuine attempt by Moscow to de-escalate the worst crisis in its relations with the West since the Cold War. It also would be easily verifiable by Western intelligence.

The West said they saw no sign of a pullout after Putin’s earlier claim of a withdrawal and NATO today said it didn’t see any immediate movements to validate the latest assertions.

The Kremlin statement didn’t say how many troops would be pulled out from the three regions or specify how quick the withdrawal would be. — AP

Bangkok, May 19
Thailand’s acting Prime Minister on Monday ruled out resigning as a way out of a protracted political crisis that is stunting economic growth, as anti-government protesters stepped up pressure to remove him and install a new administration.

Thailand is stuck in political limbo following the dismissal of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and nine of her ministers on May 7 after a court found them guilty of abuse of power.

Six months of turmoil that has included violent protests and a disrupted general election is dragging down Southeast Asia’s second biggest economy, which shrank 2.1 percent in the first quarter of the year.

Commerce Minister Niwatthamrong Boonsongphaisan has replaced Yingluck as caretaker prime minister, but the anti-government protesters say he has no legal standing and they want a “neutral” government to push through reforms. Niwatthamrong met members of the Senate, which is trying to come up with a way out of the deadlock, but he told them he would not resign.

“The current cabinet is legal in every way ... it must stay until a new cabinet of ministers is elected in. We cannot install another prime minister while we have an acting one in place,” Niwatthamrong said in statement following the meeting.

Thailand has not had a functioning lower house of Parliament since Yingluck dissolved Parliament in December. Bangkok is the scene of a tense stand-off between government

supporters loyal to Yingluck and her brother, ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and opposition demonstrators drawn from Bangkok’s middle class and royalist establishment.

The upper house Senate, the country’s only remaining legislative body, says it could select an interim prime minister but it wants the caretaker government to step down first. That has incensed protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, who wants the caretaker government removed right away.

“We will take democratic power and hand it back to the people,” Suthep, a former deputy prime minister in a government run by the pro-establishment Democrat Party, told supporters late on Sunday. — Reuters