■ IndiaFirst execution for 9 years
A man convicted of raping and murdering a teenage girl was hanged at dawn Saturday in India's first execution in nine years, as dozens of anti-death penalty protesters held a vigil outside the prison. Dhananjay Chatterjee, 39, was executed in the courtyard of Alipora Correctional Home, where he has spent the last 13 years in solitary confinement. Chatterjee was convicted of raping and suffocating Hetal Parekh, 14, who lived in a Calcutta apartment building where he worked as a security guard. He was arrested in 1990 and transferred to solitary confinement on Death Row after his conviction in 1991.
■ Thailand
Hidden apes found
Thai police have found dozens of rare orangutans that a scandal-hit private zoo claimed had been cremated after dying from pneumonia, according to reports yesterday. The 36 animals were found alive in small cages at Bangkok's Safari World during a police probe into claims they had been smuggled from Borneo or the Indonesian island of Sumatra for staged kick-boxing bouts at the zoo. The fights -- which saw the animals dressed in boxing gloves and Thai boxing shorts -- have been stopped and zoo owner Pin Kiewkacha has been charged for illegally importing the animals. A police swoop last week uncovered only 69 of the 110 suspected smuggled animals. Zoo officials claimed the 41 missing animals were cremated after they died of pneumonia but Pin later led police to 36 orangutans kept at a special quarantine section at the zoo.
■ Hong Kong
Tea-time shocker
Two knife-wielding men chopped off an insurance agent's right hand in front of other diners in a Hong Kong restaurant, police and newspapers said yesterday. The man was having afternoon tea with a female friend on Friday when two men in their 30s, wearing surgical masks, calmly walked up to him and one of them chopped off his hand with a large knife, said police spokeswoman Suzanne Lee. Local newspapers identified the victim as insurance agent Lee Kwok-sum, and said more than 20 stunned diners and employees fled the restaurant at the time of the attack. Lee remained hospitalized in serious condition yesterday. The two attackers later escaped in a car, Lee said. Police were still investigating possible motives, but the mass-circulation tabloid Oriental Daily News, reported on its front page that the attack was suspected to have been carried out by triad gang members after Lee offended the gang's crime boss by courting his girlfriend.
■ Australia
Cheater comes clean
A family-values campaigner in Australia's ruling conservative coalition shocked parliamentary colleagues Saturday by wondering aloud why cheating on his wife hadn't already ended his 10- year marriage. The Liberal Party's Ross Cameron, a parliamentary secretary, urged voters to pass judgement on him at an election Prime Minister John Howard is expected to call in a few weeks. "If my constituents want to vote for a great family man, they should probably vote for the other guy," Cameron said. "I feel in my case I ought to specifically disabuse people of a perception that I'm as good as my family photo looks. ... My wife has had some pretty good reasons to walk away and it's frankly pretty amazing that she hasn't already," the 39-year-old said.
■ Burundi153 refugees slain in camp
Armed attackers killed at least 153 people on Friday night in a UNHCR refugee camp for Tutsi Congolese refugees in western Burundi, the army said yesterday. Gatumba camp is near Uvira in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and shelters between 2,500 and 3,000 mostly Tutsi Congolese refugees. "Armed men coming from the east of (Congo) on Friday night attacked the refugee camp of Banyamulenge in Gatumba. We have a temporary toll of 153 refugees killed. Refugees' houses were also burnt," army spokesman Adolphe Manirakiza told
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