■ CHINA
Opium smuggler sentenced
An illiterate 80-year-old woman has been given a suspended death sentence by a court for smuggling opium, state media reported yesterday. The woman, Zhang Shouzhen from Guizhou Province, was going to use the 10,000 yuan (US$1,290) she earned from smuggling 8kg of opium to Beijing to pay for her grave plot, Xinhua news agency said. "I had wanted the money for a good plot of land as my graveyard," Xinhua quoted Zhang as saying at her trial, where she broke down in tears. Zhang will remain in prison for two years, after which, if she shows good behavior, her sentence could be commuted to a life term.
■ INDIA
Hospital rape suspected
Police were investigating if rape was behind a terminally ill cancer patient becoming pregnant during her stay at one of the country's top hospitals last year. The 16-year-old girl, who suffers from bone and soft tissue tumor, lodged a rape complaint with police at the weekend after she was told by doctors that she was pregnant. Police said the girl named two attendants at the Tata Memorial Hospital as responsible for raping her while she was in a semi-conscious state after surgery at the hospital in the western city of Mumbai in November last year. "It's hundred percent sure she is pregnant," Anil Nalawade, police assistant commissioner, said. The girl got pregnant about five months ago. Hospital authorities said they were probing the allegations.
■ JAPAN
Hotline with China planned
Japan and China are working to set up a 24-hour hotline between their armed forces to make emergency contact easier, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported in its evening edition yesterday. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) visited Japan last week on the first visit by a Chinese leader since 2000, and he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to set up a contact system between the militaries of the two Asian giants, the paper added. The hotline would aim primarily at preventing incidents such as confrontations between ships and aircraft provoked by intrusions into the other nation's waters or air space, the Yomiuri said. Official agreement to launch the hotline would be reached at a bilateral meeting of defense officials set for September, it said.
■ PHILIPPINES
Rebels allow immunization
Thousands of infants in southern Philippine areas made inaccessible by a decades-long armed conflict will receive immunization shots under a landmark deal between the UN's children fund and Muslim rebels, officials said yesterday. The "Days of Peace" campaign that starts yesterday in the Mindanao region, where Muslim rebels have been fighting for self-rule, will aim to vaccinate about 30,000 children against preventable diseases, UNICEF said in a statement.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Spy sentenced to nine years
A court sentenced a Korean-American yesterday to nine years in prison for spying for North Korea in the largest espionage case since the two Koreas began political reconciliation in 2000. The Seoul District Court also handed prison terms of four to six years to four South Koreans for violating the country's draconian anti-communist National Security Law. Prosecutors said Michael Jang was the group's ring leader. Jang acted on Pyongyang's orders to stir up anti-US sentiment during a visit by US President George W. Bush to South Korea in 2005, they said.
RSS