■ China
Lions kill teen reveler
An 18-year old student celebrating the end of his school exams was attacked and killed by three lions in a zoological park in northeastern Heilongjiang Province, state press said yesterday. The student was one of 10 young men who climbed over the 2m fence surrounding the lion compound at the Northern Forestry Zoological Park near the provincial capital of Harbin on Tuesday, the Beijing News said. The students, who had been drinking following their exams, illegally entered the zoo and climbed over the fence despite signs warning of the danger, the report said.
■ Malaysia
Man crashes into school
A man suffering from a mental illness rammed his car into a school, injuring 17 children, including three who were dragged under the vehicle, reports said yesterday. Pupils at the primary school in northern Penang state had assembled for a prize-giving rehearsal on Tuesday when the 32-year-old driver sped through the gates into the compound. Three nine-year-olds became trapped under the car and were dragged for a few meters before it became wedged in a drain. The driver, who was handed over to police, last week tried to ram pupils outside another primary school with a motorcycle, the New Straits Times said.
■ China
Air force to buy new plane
China's air force is preparing to introduce a new domestically made jet trainer to teach pilots to fly state-of-the-art warplanes, state media reported yesterday, underscoring the Chinese military's rapid modernization. The People's Liberation Army Air Force plans to buy the JL-9 "Mountain Eagle" in 2006-2010, the Web site of the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily reported. The announcement comes amid growing US alarm at China's heavy spending on modernizing its arsenal.
■ Malaysia
Pirates face whipping
Ten Indonesian pirates, caught after a botched attempt to hijack an oil tanker off northern Malaysia, have pleaded guilty to armed robbery and face up to 20 years in jail and whipping, officials said yesterday. The men, ages 23-57, were charged with hijacking the Malaysian-registered Neptune Delima in the Straits of Malacca on June 14. Police and naval forces laid siege to the ship and the pirates, armed with machetes, surrendered after 12 hours.
■ China
Uighur author arrested
A Chinese Muslim author has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after authorities deemed one of his stories subversive, a US-based broadcaster reported yesterday. Nurmuhemmet Yasin, a member of the Uighur ethnic group, was arrested last November and sentenced after a closed trial in February, Radio Free Asia reported. It said he was sent May 19 to the No. 1 Prison in Urumqi, capital of the Muslim Xinjiang region. A man who answered the telephone at the prison's general office said it was "impossible to confirm the names of prisoners." The man then hung up when asked for his name. Yasin's arrest followed the publication last year of his Uighur-language short story Wild Pigeon in a literary journal, Radio Free Asia said. It said the story is about a bird trapped by humans that commits suicide in captivity -- apparently seen by authorities as an allegory for Uighurs under Chinese rule.
■ United States
Zsa Zsa Gabor sues child
Colorful Hollywood personality Zsa Zsa Gabor has sued her daughter for allegedly stealing US$2 million and using it to buy a mansion, a court heard on Tuesday. Gabor, 87, and her ninth husband, Prince Frederic Von Anhalt, are suing Francesca Hilton, Gabor's daughter by hotel tycoon Conrad Hilton. Gabor accused Hilton of conspiring with others to fraudulently take out a US$3.75 million loan on her home and of then taking US$2 million from it to buy herself a house. But Judge Jacqueline Connor, sitting in the Los Angeles area of Santa Monica, refused to freeze Hilton's new property, saying there was no evidence to suggest Hilton planned to sell or encumber it.
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