■ Sri Lanka
Rebels kill six policemen
Six policemen were killed and several more wounded yesterday in a roadside bomb attack carried out by Tamil Tiger rebels, the defense ministry said. The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) used a powerful Claymore mine to blast a bus transporting constables who were travelling home on leave, a ministry spokesman said. The attack was in the district of Batticaloa, where security forces 12 days ago captured the main Tiger bastion of the town of Vakarai.
■ China
CCP official sentenced
A Chinese provincial Communist Party official who built a luxury office building resembling the White House has been sentenced to life in prison on corruption charges linked to his construction projects, a state-owned newspaper reported yesterday. Feng Liucheng was given the sentence for taking bribes worth 3.69 million yuan (US$475,000) and embezzling 2.71 million yuan in public funds, the Beijing Morning Post said. Feng, 50, became party secretary of a district in the capital of Henan Province in 1999.
■ China
Tibetan detainees tortured
Police tortured a group of Tibetans with cattle prods after they were detained while trying to flee to Nepal, a rights group said. The incident on Sept. 30 sparked international concern after Chinese border guards apparently shot dead two of the fleeing party. Police took at least 25 Tibetans into custody, including young children, the International Campaign for Tibet said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Some children who were not collected by their parents were held for up to three months and only released upon paying a fine.
■ Hong Kong
Pollution level dangerous
Air pollution hit dangerous levels yesterday as a row broke out over a carbon emissions trading plan with China that is aimed at improving chronically poor air quality. Smog from vehicles and power plants in the area nudged pollution monitors into the "very high" level, triggering an automatic health warning. The government-collated Air Pollution Index passed the critical 100 mark, a point at which people with breathing or heart problems are told to stay at home. The worst affected areas were the downtown Central region and the Yuen Long new town in the New Territories.
■ Japan
Chickens died of H5N1
Dozens of chickens at a poultry farm died of the H5N1 bird flu strain, agriculture officials said yesterday, fueling concerns about a series of recent cases in the country's poultry industry. The bird flu outbreak in Okayama was the country's third this year involving the H5N1 strain. Two earlier outbreaks in southern Miyazaki prompted the slaughter of thousands of chickens. Officials are still trying to determine whether another Miyazaki outbreak also involved H5N1. Authorities already began slaughtering chickens at the Okayama farm after the bird flu virus there was confirmed on Tuesday to involve a virus from the H5 family, a ministry official said.
■ China
Man seeks to rent girlfriend
A desperate university student wants to "rent" a girlfriend for 10 days so he can show her off to his parents over the Lunar New Year, state media reported yesterday. The physics student posted a notice on a bulletin board at Peking University offering US$130 to a woman who would pose as his girlfriend for the trip home for the holiday, Xinhua news agency reported. The advertisement said the woman should be "an honest, kind and similar-aged girl with a diploma." Xinhua said the man had told his parents, who were pressuring him to get a girlfriend, that he had been studying too hard and had no time to meet a potential partner.
RSS