■ Vietnam
Girl found after 18 years
A woman has been returned to her home in the Central Highlands 18 years after she went missing as an eight-year old girl tending cows near the border to Cambodia, her father told a newspaper on Thursday. Policeman Ksor Lu long believed that his daughter had been eaten by a wild animal until last Saturday, when he was told that loggers had found a "forestman" at a village in Cambodia's Ratanakiri Province. Lu arrived and immediately recognized his daughter.
■ China
Three arrested for murder
Police have arrested three suspects in the beating death of a journalist at a coal mine in the country's north, state media reported yesterday. The arrests follow a manhunt ordered on Wednesday to track down 20 people suspected of taking part in the beating of reporter Lan Chengzhang (蘭成長) on Jan. 9. The official Xinhua news agency said police were still seeking four others in the case. Prior to the beating, Lan had been conducting interviews outside a mine in northern province of Shanxi.
■ China
Yellow River fish wiped out
Dams, pollution and overfishing have wiped out a third of the fish species in the Yellow River, state media reported on Thursday. The news heightens fears that the country's big rivers are losing their ability to support life as rapid and poorly regulated economic growth takes an increasingly heavy toll on the environment. "The Yellow River used to be host to more than 150 species of fish, but a third of them are now extinct, including some precious ones," the People's Daily newspaper quoted an agriculture ministry official as saying. Fishing catches had fallen by 40 percent in recent years.
■ Japan
Gas leak kills at least two
A natural gas leak killed at least two people yesterday, and local officials have urged residents to evacuate their neighborhood. Around 178 people in the northern Hokkaido Prefecture city of Kitami were urged to evacuate to a nearby elementary school after the leak in residential gas lines occurred at around 1:30pm, city official Osamu Oe said. At least four people were injured and taken to the hospital for treatment, but their conditions were not immediately known, said local fire department official Takao Yokoyama. There have been no reports of any fires or explosions due to the leak, said city official Chikara Kiyono. The fire department responded after local utility company Hokkaido Gas Co. notified it that local residents were complaining of the smell of gas in their neighborhood, Yokoyama said.
■ Russia
UK envoy harassed
Russia has ordered a pro-Kremlin youth group to tone down its five-month campaign of harassment and intimidation against Britain's ambassador in Moscow. Following numerous complaints from British officials, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued a mild rebuke to Nashi, a fanatical nationalist youth movement that has been stalking British Ambassador Anthony Brenton. The group took exception to a conference of opposition parties that Brenton attended last summer and has been harassing him since September. After a meeting on Tuesday with Nashi's leader, Lavrov said the group had agreed to abide by the Vienna convention, which protects diplomats from harassment. But on Thursday, Nashi said it would continue its campaign until Brenton "apologized."
■ Germany
Conservative leader quits
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