■ INDONESIA
McDonald's bomber escapes
Police yesterday hunted for an Islamic militant who escaped from a prison where he was serving a 19-year sentence for transporting explosives used in a 2002 attack on a McDonald's restaurant that killed three people, officials said. Wirahadi, who goes by one name, was among 17 men convicted for involvement in the blast in South Sulawesi Province. Wirahadi, 26, broke out of Makassar prison on South Sulawesi on Sunday with an accomplice, using a rope to scale a 5m high barbed-wire wall, provincial prison chief Sumarni Alam said.
■ PHILIPPINES
Bank robbers die in shootout
Five suspected bank robbers, including a former policeman, were killed in a shootout with police in Manila yesterday, an official said. They opened fire from a van with stolen license plates after refusing to stop at a police checkpoint in northern Manila, Superintendent Edwin Butacan said. In the ensuing shootout five suspects were killed and a sixth was taken to hospital with unspecified injuries, Butacan said.
■ INDONESIA
Earthquake sparks fires
A strong earthquake in eastern Indonesia triggered electrical short circuits and toppled stoves, setting more than 20 homes on fire, officials said yesterday. The power of the temblor also sent coastal residents fleeing inland, but a feared tsunami never came. The 5.8-magnitude quake was centered 10km beneath the ocean floor and 15km north of Manokwari city in Papua Province, the US Geological Survey said. It struck at 12:12pm, as many people were preparing lunch. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Many residents living along the coast fled to high ground, but the quake was not strong enough to spawn a tsunami, police said.
■ CHINA
Buns don't have to be perfect
Thousands of Chinese snack vendors are happily digesting news that China's ubiquitous steamed bun, or mantou, does not have to be perfectly round. China has battled to boost food quality and standards in the wake of a string of food safety scandals, but media reports of a new standard for mantou, a cheap wheat-based snack sold on street corners, outraged Internet users and academics. China's quality watchdog denied that standards recommending a "perfect shape" for mantou held the force of law. "There are no specific regulations on the shape of wheat-flour mantou in the standard," the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said on its Web site.
■ MALAYSIA
Bookies refuse sex tape bets
Illegal betting syndicates in a northern state have refused bets on the number of the hotel room where an ex-government minister was allegedly filmed having sex, the New Straits Times said on Monday. Bookies in Perak declared the number 1301 off-limits in a numbers game, disappointing punters who had hoped to make a killing on the room where former health minister Chua Soi Lek was purported to have been taped engaging in sexual acts with an unidentified woman. Chua resigned after the video was widely circulated in the southern state of Johor. "We are not taking any more chances this time around," the paper quoted an unidentified source as saying. "The last time we accepted bets after a particular set of numbers was published on the front page of a Chinese daily, we were badly hit and lost several million ringgit.
■ EGYPT
Policemen jailed for abuse
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