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■ SOUTH KOREA

Cabinet approves Lee probe

The Cabinet yesterday approved a special counsel to look into securities fraud allegations against president-elect Lee Myung-bak, the presidential Blue House said in a statement. Conservative Lee will become the country's first president-elect to face a criminal investigation and the probe is likely to undermine his leadership when he takes office in late February. Members of Lee's Grand National Party have asked outgoing South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and his government to veto the special counsel bill for the sake of national unity. Any investigation is unlikely to be completed before Lee's inauguration on Feb. 25, when he will become immune from prosecution. But questions about his character would be used by liberals in an April parliamentary election, where they are battling to keep their majority, analysts said.



■ JAPAN

Litterer-cum-murder suspect

A man who caused a stir by tossing girls' underwear around his neighborhood in Osaka was arrested on Tuesday for alleged involvement in a murder-robbery 14 years ago, police said. Kazuo Oshitani, 48, was arrested earlier this month for scattering girls' underwear and nylons around his block, but a DNA test of bodily fluid found in the underwear matched a sample taken from the scene of a robbery-murder at a hotel, a police spokesman said. Oshitani, an office clerk and father of three, denied the charges, he said. He drew police attention after decorating his neighbors' bicycles, cars and even their front doors with girls' underpants. Police, who had received about 170 complaints from local residents, raided his house and confiscated more than 200 pairs of underwear and a few sex toys. Until the murder case arose, he was arrested only on charges of littering.



■ CHINA

Land grabs affect food safety

Illegal land grabs are threatening food supplies in China as scarce farming land is destroyed to make way for industrial and urban development, a minister was quoted as saying yesterday. "The illegal acquisition of arable land [for purposes other than agriculture] has endangered food safety and social stability," Land and Resources Minister Xu Shaoshi (徐紹史) said, according to the China Daily. "[But] given the growing population and fast industrialization and urbanization, illegal land acquisition will probably continue." Land grabs have been a well-known and much-hated phenomenon in China for many years, with corrupt local government officials and businessmen forcing farmers off their land for little or no compensation.



■ VIETNAM

Government to control blogs

Blogs need to be controlled to prevent the spread of subversive and sexually explicit content, communist government officials said according to a state media report yesterday. The ministry responsible for culture and information, which controls traditional media, in July said it was drafting regulations that would fine bloggers who post subversive and sexually explicit content online. Deputy Information and Communications Minister Do Quy Doan told a conference on press law that "controlling Weblogs is about developing them in accordance with the law, not forbidding them. We should provide guidelines that help people know what type of information they can upload online," Doan said according to a report in the English-language Than Nien (Youth Daily) newspaper. Bloggers would also be held responsible for information they access, he said.
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