■ Nepal
Students hurt in oil protest
Students protesting increased oil prices clashed with police in the Nepalese capital yesterday, student leaders said. At least six students were injured in the melee, said a student leader Kalyan Gurung. Police fired several rounds of tear gas at the protesting students, who retaliated by throwing bricks. The students opposed a decision by Nepal's royal government to raise the price of petroleum products. The government last week increased the prices of gasoline, diesel, kerosene and aviation fuel by 5 Nepalese rupees (US$0.07) per liter.
■ Australia
Drug smugglers stupid: PM
Australians who smuggle drugs into Southeast Asia are stupid and should not expect their government to bail them out, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday. His warning came after a wave of drug busts in Indonesia that put some young Australians in jeopardy of death sentences or long prison terms. "It's beyond belief that any Australian could be so stupid as to carry drugs into any country in Asia," Howard told a local television station. "We have told Australians, young Australians, again and again, don't take drugs out of this country, don't take them into Asian countries, because you can't expect any mercy."
■ Singapore
Inmates do call-center work
Female inmates at a Singapore prison are working 12-hour shifts as telephone call-center operators and telemarketers in a state campaign to rehabilitate lawbreakers, an official said yesterday. "It's pretty much the same as a commercial call center, except it's behind bars," said Vincent Chan, a senior manager at the Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises. "It's our way of upgrading the old prisons' industries and enhancing the inmates' employability," Chan said. He said the call center is a cubicle-filled room about the size of a basketball court at the Changi Women's Prison and Drug Rehabilitation Center.
■ Hong Kong
Gay sex laws discriminate
A Hong Kong judge ruled yesterday that laws against gay sex -- including one that demands a life sentence for men aged under 21 who engage in sodomy -- are unconstitutional and discriminatory. High Court Judge Michael Hartmann made the judgment after William Roy Leung, a 20-year-old homosexual, launched a legal challenge against what he considered discriminatory anti-gay laws. Hartmann said the laws "discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. [They] are demeaning of gay men who are, through the legislation, stereotyped as deviant."
■ Thailand
Penis issue dogs Cabinet
Thailand's prime minister is trying to ferret out a government minister who allegedly had a penis enlargement procedure, saying news of it is affecting the Cabinet's reputation, a news report said yesterday. "Who did it? Tell me," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told his ministers at Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, triggering a round of banter and causing some to squirm in their chairs, the Nation newspaper said. Last week, a woman -- being sued for defamation by a clinic after she claimed it gave her a face-disfiguring silicon injection -- said a Cabinet member had received a penis-enlargement injection at the same clinic and urged him to come forward as a witness in her defense. Calling on the official, the woman said, "The problem of my face is bigger than the problem of your penis."
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