ABUJA (Reuters) -- Devastating floods collapsed walls at a jail in Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria early last week, allowing 281 prisoners to escape, prison authorities said. Seven of the escaped inmates have been recaptured in operations by security agencies, Umar Abubakar, spokesperson for the Nigeria Correctional Services said in a statement. Maiduguri is the capital of Borno state which early last week suffered its worst floods in decades. The flooding began when a dam overflowed following heavy rains, decimating a state-owned zoo and washing crocodiles and snakes into flooded communities. The flood has killed at least 30 people according to the country’s emergency agency and affected a million others, with hundreds of thousands of people forced into camps for displaced people.

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HANOI (AFP) -- Typhoon Yagi caused $1.6 billion in economic losses in Vietnam, state media said Monday, as the UN’s World Food Program said the deadly floods it triggered in Myanmar were the worst in the country’s recent history. Yagi battered Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand with powerful winds and a huge dump of rain over a week ago, triggering floods and landslides that have killed more than 400 people, according to official figures. It tore across Vietnam’s densely populated Red River delta -- a vital agricultural region that is also home to major manufacturing hubs -- damaging factories and infrastructure, and inundating farmland. The typhoon caused an estimated 40 trillion dong ($1.6 billion) in economic losses, state media reported, citing an initial government assessment. The death toll in Vietnam stands at 292, with 38 missing, more than 230,000 homes damaged and 280,000 hectares of crops destroyed, according to authorities.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Indian police have detained 104 striking workers protesting low wages at a Samsung Electronics plant in southern India, as they were planning a march on Monday without permission, police officials said. The detention marks an escalation of a strike by workers at a Samsung home appliance plant near Chennai city in the state of Tamil Nadu, Reuters reported. Workers want higher wages and have boycotted work for seven days, disrupting production that contributes roughly a third of Samsung’s annual India revenue of $12 billion. On Monday, the workers planned to start a protest march, but were detained as there was no permission given as there are schools, colleges and hospitals in that area, said senior police officer of Kancheepuram district, K. Shanmugam. Workers have since last week been protesting at a makeshift tent near the plant, demanding higher wages, recognition for a union backed by labor group Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and better working hours.

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MANILA (AFP) -- The Philippines insisted on Monday that it had not given up a South China Sea reef, two days after it pulled out a ship stationed there following a months-long standoff with rival claimant China. Manila had deployed the coast guard flagship BRP Teresa Magbanua to Sabina Shoal in April to stop Beijing from building an artificial island there, as it has atop several other disputed features in the strategic waterway. But the ship was abruptly called back to the western Philippine island of Palawan, with Manila citing damage from an earlier clash with Chinese ships, ailing crew members, dwindling food and bad weather. “We have not lost anything. We did not abandon anything. Escoda Shoal is still part of our exclusive economic zone,” Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela told a news conference Monday, using the Filipino name for Sabina Shoal. Beijing claims most of the South China Sea, including Sabina Shoal, despite an international tribunal ruling that its assertions have no merit.

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SEOUL (Reuters) -- The North Korean Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA will convene a new session on Oct. 7 in Pyongyang to discuss matters related to a constitutional amendment, state media reported on Monday. The last SPA meeting was held in January where leader Kim Jong Un called for a constitutional amendment that would view South Korea as the “primary foe.” At that time, Kim said he had concluded that unification with the South was no longer possible. Other issues such as laws regarding the light industry and product quality supervision will also be discussed, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

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MEXICO CITY (AFP) -- Eleven more people have been killed in a wave of violence in a Mexican cartel heartland shaken by gang infighting, authorities said. The latest fatalities included five men whose bodies were found on a highway south of the city of Culiacan, the Sinaloa state prosecutor’s office said in a daily update. More than 30 people have been reported dead in a week of bloodshed in Sinaloa, although authorities did not specify how many were believed to be linked to the cartel infighting. The clashes follow the dramatic arrest on U.S. soil on July 25 of Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who claimed he had been kidnapped in Mexico and delivered into US custody against his will. Zambada, 76, was detained along with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of El Chapo, who is serving a life sentence in the United States.