ASIA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 24, 10 June 1908, Page 8

ASIA.

The Khurds are massacring and pillage ing tlie Uraniiah district, in Persia. The Brazilian training ship Benjamin Constant discovered on Wake Island, a lonely island in the Pacific, twenty shipwrecked sailors, supposed to be survivors of the battle of Tsushima. Advices from Teheran state that seven hundred well armed Afghans have occupied the town of Regan, in SouthEastern Persia, one hundred and fifty miles from the Afghan frontier. Persia has satisfied Russia’s claims for compensation in connection with the attack made last month by brigands on the Russian frontier guards at Beliauverski, on the north-east frontier of the Azerbaijan. Reuter’s Agency reports that another body of Afghans has gone eastward, escorting 900 camel loads of contraband rifles and ammunition, which it is supposed were landed on the Mekran Coast (partly in Persia and partly in Baluchistan), and are destined for the Indian north-west frontier. Plague at Hongkong. There is a serious recrudescence of the plague in Hongkong. The mortality amongst the Chinese is high. Only one European has been attacked up to the present. Fighting in Korea. « Reuter’s Seoul correspondent cables that Koreans who protest against the annexation of their country by Japan have again risen against the Japanese. Nine days’ fighting .occurred between the Japanese and Korean troops. The latter were defeated and sustained heavy losses. In all sixty-nine casualties occurred during the nine days’ fighting, and 370 Koreans were killed, while 55 were taken prisoners.

The fighting was not altogether onesided, and, although official information is not forthcoming, the Japanese losses are probably heavy.