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Xinhua world news summary at 0030 GMT, March 31

Xinhua, March 31, 2015 Adjust font size:

The death toll from recent heavy rains, flooding and mudslides in northern Chile has climbed to 17, while 20 people remain missing, the Interior Ministry's National Emergency Office (ONEMI) said Monday.

"The number of deaths from last week's floods and downpours in the regions of Antofagasta, Atacama and Coquimbo was raised to 17, with the number of missing people maintained at 20," ONEMI Director Ricardo Toro said. (Chile-Floods)

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HELSINKI -- Finland is going to apply for membership in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Finnish Finance Minister Antti Rinne confirmed on Monday.

"For years China has been encouraged to take more responsibility in the development on international institutions in the finance sector. Now that China has proceeded to doing this, Finland wants to show its support for the endeavour", Rinne said in a press release in Finnish language.(Finland-AIIB)

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BERLIN -- German public prosecutors in Duesseldorf said Monday that the co-pilot of the crashed Germanwings plane had received treatment because of suicide risk several years ago, but there was no proof he had had suicidal tendencies or aggression since then.

Information gathered from an audio recorder of the crashed flight 4U9525 led French prosecutors to believe that the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, deliberately crashed the plane last Tuesday. (Germany-Germanwings-No suicidal tendancies)

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LONDON -- Britain officially kicked off its general election campaign after the Parliament was dissolved on Monday.

Both the Conservatives and the Labor party, the country's two main political parties, made further pledges on Monday in a bid to win the battle to No. 10. (Britain-Election-Campaign)

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MADRID -- Spanish national police arrested a total of 13 people in four Spanish cities on Monday in an operation directed against an anarchist collective.

The arrests were in Madrid, Barcelona, Palencia and Granada against presumed members of a collective known as Co-ordinated Anarchist Groups (GAC), who face changes of belonging to a criminal organization with terrorist aims, sabotage, and the placement of explosive or incendiary devices. (Spain-Arrest-Terrorism)

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WASHINGTON -- After showing the jury autopsy photos of the dead, prosecutors on Monday ended their first part of case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, suspect in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing attack.

The testimony on Monday, the 15th day since the trial began in March, mainly focused on how the bomb Tsarnaev placed near the finish line of the marathon mutilated bodies of Martin Richard, 8, and Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Chinese grad student, the two of the three killed in a twin bombings on April 15, 2013, during which some 260 were also maimed.(US-2013Boston-bombing) Endi