■ HONG KONG
Ching admits to mediation
Freed Hong Kong journalist Ching Cheong (程翔), who was jailed on spying charges, yesterday admitted in an interview with Hong Kong's RTHK radio to being involved in mediation efforts between China and Taiwan. Ching, 58, who had been chief China correspondent for Singapore's the Straits Times, was released last month on parole after spending nearly three years in jail on charges of spying for Taipei. In its original verdict, a Beijing court said Ching passed on information, some of it top secret, to two people from a Taiwanese foundation who were in fact deputies of an intelligence agency. Ching wrote some articles for the foundation but has denied being involved in spying.
■ north korea
Official probed over cash
A North Korean official in charge of inter-Korean trade is being interrogated after some US$20 million in cash was found at his home, Dong-A Ilbo reported yesterday. The newspaper, quoting an unidentified Chinese source, said Jung Un-op, head of the North's National Economic Cooperation Committee, is being questioned about the cash. He said most staff of the committee's branch offices in China and Russia had undergone questioning in Pyongyang. Dong-A, quoting experts, said some of the cash may be bribes from South Korean businesses taking part in inter-Korean economic projects or the proceeds from the sale of aid goods.
■ india
Five die from food offerings
Five children have died and 96 people have fallen seriously ill in Isua Village in Bihar after eating sweets and rice offered to a goddess at a village shrine, health officials said yesterday. The children fell sick on Thursday during a festival to mark the full moon shortly after eating the temple offerings, known as prasad, made to Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of learning. "The children began vomiting and falling on the ground senseless," Ramvilas Ranjan, a health official in the district, said by telephone. Ranjan thinks it was probably food poisoning. Villagers told him the food had been kept in a store room for 10 days. Tests are being done on the prasad.
■ japan
`Girl' caught trespassing
A man was arrested for trespassing this week after turning up at a high school dressed in a girl's uniform and a long wig, local police said. Thirty-nine-year-old Tetsunori Nanpei told police he had bought the uniform over the Internet and put it on to take a stroll near the school in Saitama, north of Tokyo, on Wednesday, the Asahi Shimbun said. When students standing outside the gates started to scream at the sight of him, he dashed inside the school grounds, hoping to blend in with the crowds of teenagers, the paper said. They also screamed, forcing the man to flee, losing his wig in the process. A school clerk pursued him and stopped him at a nearby riverbank, the paper said.
■ malaysia
No nail polish for voters
Female voters have been told to remove their nail polish on election day on March 8 or face having it stripped off by election officials, the New Straits Times said yesterday. Election Commission Secretary Kamaruzaman Mohamad Noor said nails must be clean so that ballot workers can apply indelible ink on the right index finger to indicate a vote has been cast. "Just for that one day, we need you to keep your fingers free of nail polish," he said. The nation is also introducing transparent ballot boxes in response to allegations that past elections have been marred by fraud.
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