■ INDONESIA
Amphibious tank sinks
Six marines were killed when their amphibious tank sank during an exercise off East Java, according to a report yesterday. A marine spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Novarin Gunawan, was quoted by the Detikcom news Web site saying that six marines died on Saturday in the accident. "Yes, it is true," he told Detikcom, but declined further comments. Navy spokesman Commodore Iskandar Sitompul could not be reached for comment. Detikcom said a total of 14 men were on board the tank when it sank. They have all been located, including the six dead.
■ INDIA
Five die in building collapse
At least five people were killed and at least seven others injured yesterday when a hotel building collapsed, with many still trapped in the debris, a local official said. "Five people have died and seven are injured. They have been taken to hospitals," said a city official in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state. Rescue workers were struggling to reach people under mounds of debris at the hotel in the heart of the city, a photographer said. The dead included students who were visiting the city to take job tests, the official said.
■ JAPAN
Snow injures 16 people
Winter's heaviest snowfalls hit Tokyo yesterday, hampering traffic, forcing sports events and air travel to be canceled and seeing more than a dozen people hurt, officials said. Three centimeters of snow was observed in the capital by noon, with a low-pressure system moving northeast along the archipelago's Pacific coast, Japan's Meteorological Agency said. At least 16 people were sent to hospitals in snow-related incidents, said a spokesman for the Tokyo Fire Department. "Most of them were injured after they slipped and fell on snow-covered pavements. Four broke legs or arms," the spokesman said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Cases to be heard online
Some court cases will soon be heard online, with judges receiving lawyers' arguments by e-mail, a state minister said yesterday. The system, known as JusticeLink, is to be rolled out in courts across the largest state over the next 12 months, New South Wales state Attorney General John Hatzistergos said. Prosecutors and defense lawyers will log in to a bulletin board and type their arguments, which would then be sent to the judge by e-mail. The judge would make orders in real time. "While the time-honored traditions of our legal system will remain intact, JusticeLink will streamline the process, saving millions of dollars in costs and countless hours spent in the courtroom," the attorney general said.
■ AFGHANISTAN
Three held for kidnapping
Police detained three guards of a warlord early yesterday for kidnapping and beating up one of their boss's political rivals and his son, an official said. Dozens of guards of northern strongmen Abdul Rashid Dostum abducted Akbar Bai -- Dostum's political rival -- and his son, in his 20s, from their house in Kabul on Saturday, said Ali Shah Paktiawal, head of criminal investigations for the Kabul police. They beat the two hostages and took them to Dostum's house in an affluent Kabul neighborhood, Paktiawal said. "At midnight we surrounded Dostum's house and we freed the two,'' Paktiawal said. Police arrested three of Dostum's guards, and Bai and his son were taken to a hospital for treatment, Paktiawal said.
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