■ INDONESIA
Police seek militant
Police searched yesterday for a militant who escaped from jail in eastern Indonesia while serving a 20-year prison term for masterminding a deadly cafe bombing. Jasmin bin Kasau apparently used a rope to climb the walls of Guning Sari prison on Sulawesi island late last Friday as inmates were performing communal prayers, the jail's security chief Muhammad Fadli said. Bin Kasau and several other Islamic militants were serving prison terms for the 2004 bombing of a cafe on Sulawesi, which in 2000 and 2001 saw deadly battles between Muslim and Christian gangs that killed at least 1,000 people. The blast on the cafe in Palopo district killed four people. Police spokesman Dwi Hartono said "negligence" by prison guards was suspected in the breakout, adding that officers were unable to find him yesterday.
■ CHINA
Fake `maotai' seized
Quality supervisors raided a hotel and made the biggest-ever seizure of fake maotai, the fiery national liquor favored by Chinese Communist Party leaders at state banquets. Fake liquor is common in the country, which has been assailed on all sides over health safety in recent months involving exports ranging from toothpaste, tires and toys to seafood and drugs. Beijing executed six people in 1998 for producing and selling liquor tainted with methanol which killed 30 people in one of the country's worst poisoning cases. More than 2,500 bottles of fake maotai were found at a hotel in Korla in the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang, the Beijing News said. It was the biggest case involving the fake liquor, which can be priced from a few hundred yuan to a staggering 38,000 yuan (US$4,900).
■ VIETNAM
Marriage brokers busted
Three Vietnamese were detained in Ho Chi Minh City for parading 65 young women to before two South Korean men as part of an illegal marriage brokering service, police said yesterday. The 46-year-old man and two women, aged 42 and 24, were detained in a restaurant, a police officer said, adding an investigation was underway. The Thanh Nien newspaper said that the ringleader, Huynh Van Binh, told police he had organized four similar events. He had introduced around 240 women to South Korean men since 2005 and earned US$1,500 for each successful case, the paper reported. Vietnam has recently become a popular destination for bachelors from South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere searching for wives, often on week-long trips that include medical checkups, visa procedures and speedy honeymoons.
■ MALAYSIA
No fasting needed in space
The nation's first astronaut will not be required to fast while in space during Ramadan, Science Minister Jamaluddin Jarjis said yesterday. "When you travel there is no compulsion to fast," he said. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, 35, is one of three people who will lift off in a Russian space craft on Oct. 10 for a 10-day mission in the International Space Station. Jamaluddin said Muszaphar, who has been fasting during training, can postpone the fasting until after he returns. Ramadan started on Sept. 13 and is expected to end on Oct. 12. Jamaluddin said he expects Muszaphar to pray only three times a day instead of the obligatory five to reduce the inconvenience of going through prayer rituals in the gravity-free atmosphere.
■ MALAYSIA
Police rescue caged girl
A seven-year-old girl kept in an iron cage overnight by her mother was rescued by police after neighbors raised the alarm, the Star daily said yesterday. The mother, who is being investigated by police, faces losing custody of the child, the newspaper said. "When I got up to check, I saw this little girl in the iron cage. It was so sad to see a child calling out for her mother to release her," the neighbor said. "After a while, the cries stopped. I thought the mother had taken her in but that was not the case ... I got angry. She must have been kept there the whole night." Another neighbor said he had seen the child locked out of the front gates of the property, sometimes for several hours.
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