■ Hong Kong
Thousands expect to march
Thousands of people are expected to take part in a march on Sunday to protest against China's interference in the territory's leadership election. Organizers say they expect at least 3,000 people to march wearing black to symbolize the death of political autonomy. They are protesting against the government's decision to allow China to decide whether Hong Kong's new chief executive to be appointed in July should serve a two or five-year term. Sunday's march takes place on the day the National People's Congress meets in Beijing to interpret Hong Kong's Basic Law, the third time it has done so since the territory returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
■ China
Wife's body hidden in fridge
A man who killed his wife and hid her body in a refrigerator for three years was given a suspended death sentence by a Beijing court, state media reported yesterday. Zhao Qingsong told the Beijing No.2 Intermediate Court that he strangled his wife in Beijing during a heated row in 2001, suspecting her of having an affair, Beijing News reported. After realizing he had killed her, he hid the body in a fridge and burned incense for her every day, it said. He moved house three times but took the refrigerator with him. He even took her body out on three occasions to clean it, the report said. "Wherever I go, I want to take her," a tearful Zhao told the court. The case only came to light when his suspicious landlord opened the refrigerator last July without informing him.
■ Bangladesh
`Dead' son's visit frees mom
A court has freed on bail a woman convicted of killing her eight-year-old son after the boy, now aged 18, turned up to visit her in jail, a report said yesterday. The boy, named Faruk, arrived at the jail in Sherpur district last month claiming his father had made him "vanish" in order to frame his mother after she divorced him in 1995, the report in the English-language Daily Star said. Kamala Khatun and her second husband were convicted of the killing in May 1997 on the basis of circumstantial evidence given at their trial by her first husband, the report added. The Bangladesh High Court on Monday freed Khatun and her husband on bail pending the outcome of their appeal.
■ Malaysia
Couples don't need refresher
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad has rejected a proposal to require Muslim couples to take a refresher course in marital harmony after 10 years of marriage, saying they need no further training if they've already lasted that long together. "Not necessary," Abdullah said in response to the proposal floated by the parliamentary secretary in his office, Mashitah Ibrahim. She had proposed such courses as a way to reduce domestic strife and bring down the divorce rate among Muslims. Abdullah said prenuptial courses given by the government's Islamic Development Department provide enough good advice to last a lifetime. All Muslim couples in Malaysia are required to undergo the courses -- which focus on religious aspects of marriage -- before they can get a marriage license.
■ China
Bus crash kills 27
A bus fell off a bridge in Chongqing Province early yesterday, killing 27 people and seriously injuring four others, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The tour bus was carrying 31 passengers when it veered off a bridge on a mountain highway at 2:50am.
RSS