■ Thailand
Trio convicted for murder
A court sentenced two men to death and another to life in prison yesterday for the 1999 murder of an Australian accountant while he was restructuring the debt of a sugar mill. Mill director Pradit Siriwiriyakul was acquitted of hiring gunmen to kill Michael Wansley, 58, who had discovered that large sums of money supposed to have been paid to cane farmers had disappeared. The court sentenced Pradit's aide Boonpan Suthiwiriwan to life in jail for hiring Somchoke Suthiwiriwan and Sompong Buasakul as part of the hit squad. They were condemned to death for conspiring to kill Wansley. The actual gunman is being tried separately.
■ Malaysia
Traffic fines reduced
Authorities have lowered fines for traffic offenses by up to 70 percent in hopes that motorists will actually pay them instead of bribing traffic police to avoid tickets, a police spokesman said yesterday. Tickets for minor offenses such as speeding, beating the red light and using a cellphone while driving will now have reduced fines, Police Internal Security and Public Order Director Mustafa Abdullah told the New Straits Times. Fines were also being cut because the cost of living has ballooned with escalating gas prices, he said. However, there will be no reduction for offenses such as drunk or reckless driving or fatal accidents, he said.
■ China
Dengue cases on the rise
The number of dengue fever cases in Guangdong Province has more than doubled to 219 in the past week, half of whom are still in hospital, Xinhua news agency said late on Monday. Of the 219 people infected, mostly since June, 192 were in Guangzhou, Xinhua said.
■ Austria
Irving's appeal rejected
Austria's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by right-wing British historian David Irving and upheld the conviction in his Holocaust denial case, the Austria Press Agency reported on Monday. In February, a Vienna state court convicted Irving of denying the Holocaust and sentenced him to three years in prison. The Alpine country's highest court rejected the appeal during a closed session last week, APA said, citing a preliminary communication from the court. A court spokesman did not return repeated calls for confirmation on Monday, and Irving's lawyer was not immediately available for comment.
■ Vietnam
Heroin ring smashed
Police said yesterday they had arrested 18 members of a heroin trafficking ring, following a two-year investigation. Alleged ringleader Can Viet Phuong and 17 accomplices had been detained in the northeastern province of Quang Ninh between early May and last week. They are accused of smuggling a total of about 37kg of the drug from northwestern mountainous provinces to Quang Ninh for onward shipment to China and other countries. The network hid the heroin "in motorcycle helmets, shoes and the window frames of buses," said the party-run Nhan Dan newspaper. Police had been investigating the ring for more than two years, the report said.
■ South Korea
Japan talks inconclusive
Seoul and Tokyo ended two days of talks yesterday with no agreement on redrawing a sea border and resolving a simmering maritime dispute centred on desolate islands claimed by both countries, an official said. Tensions have flared in the past year and a half over the islands -- called Tokto in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan -- which lie about the same distance from the mainlands of the two Asian neighbors. "Both countries shared the view that drawing up the exclusive economic zone limits was important for building a stable maritime order in Northeast Asia and for the development of the two countries' relationship," Seoul said in a statement.
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