■ Indonesia
Escapees turn selves in
Many convicted criminals who fled a prison destroyed during an earthquake last week have returned and reported to the warden, police said on Monday. A total of 178 inmates escaped from the main prison on Nias, where thousands of buildings were damaged or destroyed in the 8.7-magnitude earthquake on March 28, said a police official. He said about 50 inmates have returned and police are urging the rest also to give themselves up. He did not say where the 50-odd prisoners were being housed at the moment since the prison was destroyed.
■ Indonesia
Poisoning suspects named
Police yesterday named two Garuda Indonesia crew members as suspects in the last year's poisoning death of a prominent human rights activist during a flight to Amsterdam. Munir Said Thalib, the leader of the human rights group Impartial, died on a flight on Sept. 7. A Dutch police report said the 38-year-old rights campaigner had been poisoned with nearly 500mg of arsenic, four times the lethal dose. Colonel Anton Charlian identified the new suspects as Oedi Irianto, who was working in the flight's pantry and stewardess Yeti Susmiarti. They are the second and third suspects in the case. Last month, police named Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, a Garuda pilot assigned as an aviation security officer on the flight, as the first suspect.
■ Japan
Six die in death pact
Six people died overnight when two brothers in their 40s made a pact to strangle their family and then stab each other with knives, police said yesterday. One of the brothers, Mikio Murata, 46, was the sole survivor found early yesterday in the home in Aichi Prefecture and was hospitalized. Murata admitted that he helped strangle his parents, Minoru and Kinue, both 74, his wife, Ayako, 44, his daughter, Naho, 11, and his son, Kenya, 9, police said. Murata allegedly enlisted the assistance of his younger brother Toyoharu with an understanding they would later kill each other. Toyoharu, 44, died of the knife wounds to the abdomen but Mikio survived.
■ Sri Lanka
Tigers fire on ship
Tamil Tiger rebels opened fire yesterday on a Sri Lankan navy ship that had European ceasefire monitors on board, but there were no reports of casualties, a military spokesman said. The firing took place just south of the main harbor of Trincomalee in eastern Sri Lanka, a military spokesman said. The government and the Tigers signed a ceasefire in 2002 that has largely held up, but both sides frequently accuse each other of violating the accord. Peace talks between the two sides have been stalled since April 2003.
■ Thailand
Miniature orchid developed
A researcher has developed a miniature orchid that grows only 5cm and flowers within two weeks after planting, media reports said yesterday. The new orchid, named Dendrobium scabrilingue Lindl, was developed by Prasartporn Samitamarn, director of the Plant Biotechnology Research Center at Chiang Mai University, The Nation newspaper reported. Prasartporn said the new orchid species must be grown in germ-free jars with synthetic fertilizers which allows it to flower throughout the year. The center is filing for a patent on the new orchid.
■ United Kingdom
Cutlery allowed on flights
Passengers flying from British airports will be able to dine with metal cutlery again when anti-terrorism rules banning sharp objects on board are relaxed later this month. The British government banned all such objects on airplanes after Islamic radicals used box-cutters to hijack planes in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Now improved in-flight and airport security means the rules can be relaxed, transport chiefs say. Security at Britain's three busiest airports confiscated 15,000 sharp objects from passengers in the first 12 months of the ban, said BAA, the UK's main airport operator. But from April 25, passengers flying from British airports will be able to carry on board knitting needles and scissors, with blades shorter than 3cm. Other items like penknives remain banned.
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