■ AUSTRALIA
Surgeon denies fraud
One of Australia's most celebrated trauma surgeons yesterday denied claims that he made extra money by operating unnecessarily on dozens of road accident victims. German-born Thomas Kossmann was suspended on Tuesday from his post of director of trauma surgery at the Alfred Hospital and Melbourne's Monash University, and could face criminal charges. Kossmann, who was associate professor of surgery at University Hospital in Zurich before arriving in 2001 in Australia, denies the allegations. "If I've got it wrong, I'm pretty sure other people have got it wrong," Kossmann said. "If you look retrospective, things are looking different, but if you want to save somebody's life and you do it under, let's say, under such extreme conditions, you decide on the spot."
■ JAPAN
Man worked to death
A Toyota employee died of overwork after logging more than 106 hours of overtime in a month, a judge ruled on Friday, reversing a ministry's earlier decision not to pay compensation to his widow. The Toyota Labor Standards Inspection office, a local branch of Japan's labor ministry, refused to pay the widow compensation for a spouse's work-related death, saying the man had only logged 45 hours of overtime in the month before he died, Japanese media reported. But the court ruled that the employee had worked far more than that, said Yomiuri Online, a Japanese news Web site. The Nagoya District Court in central Japan said the ruling overturned the labor ministry's decision. The employee, who was working at a Toyota factory in central Japan, died of irregular heartbeat in February 2002 after passing out in the factory at around 4am.
■ VIETNAM
Death sentences read
Twelve people were sentenced to death after a court found them guilty on Friday of trafficking more than 70kg of heroin, state media said yesterday. Judges in the five-day trial in the northern province of Quang Ninh also handed life prison terms to eight others, while another nine members of the same gang were jailed for between 18 months and 30 years, the daily Nhan Dan newspaper said. The defendants, several of whom were related, were convicted of trafficking the heroin from several northern provinces between 2005 and May last year.
■ SINGAPORE
Air force pollutes farms
A test by the air force of a red plume of smoke for an acrobatic display has backfired after a cloud of the dye polluted nearby farms' vegetable plots. The air force was testing the dye on the ground, but strong winds carried the smoke away from the base, the ministry of defense said in a statement yesterday. Nearby farms had to destroy 200 tonnes of vegetables -- about 10 truck loads -- since the dye is not approved for food use, the Straits Times paper said. The ministry of defense said it would not cause adverse health effects if inhaled.
■ SRI LANKA
Rebels killed in clashes
Thirteen Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in clashes in the island's embattled northeast, the military said yesterday, marking the latest violence in the long-running ethnic conflict. The clashes occurred overnight, the military said in a statement. In separate fighting near the guerrillas' stronghold in the north of the island, the military said it destroyed a rebel bunker during a 24-hour period that ended early yesterday but suffered no casualties. The pro-rebel Tamilnet.com Web site said air force fighter jets dropped "several bombs" late on Friday around guerrilla-controlled areas in the northern peninsula of Jaffna.
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