CALGARY - The Alberta government is expanding or opening trade offices on three continents to open up markets and reduce dependence on markets in the United States. "We can no longer rely primarily on one customer for our resources, goods and services (exports)," Cal Dallas, the international and intergovernmental relations minister, announced at the University of Calgary on Friday. "Eighty-six per cent of those resources went to one customer, the U.S."

FORT WORTH, Texas - American Airlines is beginning daily nonstop flights between Dallas and South Korea, adding a new route to Asia, where it lags behind rivals United and Delta. American said the first westbound flight was scheduled to leave Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Thursday and arrive at in Seoul's Incheon International Airport on Friday afternoon, local time. American also flies from the U.S. to Tokyo, Shanghai and Beijing. It operates a trans-Pacific joint venture with Japan Airlines for additional destinations in Asia.

By Corrie MacLaggan WEST, Texas (Reuters) - West High School student Mason Barton, 17, was heading home from watching friends compete at a track and field meet on Wednesday when she got word of an explosion in her tiny town of West, outside of Waco, Texas. "We were all making a joke," she said outside a local community centre on Thursday, tears streaming down her face. "Then we heard how bad it was. It was like something you hear out of a horror story."

By Carey Gillam and Corrie MacLaggan WEST, Texas (Reuters) - Rescuers searched on Thursday for survivors in the rubble of homes destroyed by a fiery fertilizer plant explosion in a rural Texas town that the mayor said had killed at least 14 people. Among the dead are four paramedics killed in the chemical blast at West Fertilizer Co. on Wednesday evening after emergency responders rushed to put out a fire at the plant, West Mayor Tommy Muska said.