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■VIETNAM

Pot plant graveyard busted

Police have detained two custodians who were about to harvest their first crop of cannabis, a source of drugs like hashish and marijuana, from a cemetery in Hanoi, a state-run newspaper reported yesterday. Police took in the head of the caretaker team at the cemetery in the outer district of Hoang Mai, after the authorities found cannabis plants grown on a 25m² patch, the Vietnam Labor Confederation-run Lao Dong newspaper said.

■INDONESIA

Prosecutors seek five years

Prosecutors sought a five-year jail term yesterday for a businesswoman accused of bribing an investigator to the tune of US$660,000 to drop a major embezzlement case. Chief prosecutor Sarjono Turin said Artalyta Suryani had been “convincingly” shown to have bribed Urip Tri Gunawan, a senior prosecutor in the attorney general’s office who was in charge of the embezzlement probe. Suryani allegedly bribed Gunawan to drop his investigation into Sjamsul Nursalim, who is accused of embezzling some US$3 billion in emergency bail-out loans to his bank during the Asian financial crisis in 1998.


■MALAYSIA

Hindus take body to court

A Hindu family yesterday vowed to fight Islamic authorities over the rights to the body of their relative whom a religious court has declared to be Muslim. In the nation’s latest dispute over Islamic conversion, the family of Elangesvaran Benedict, who committed suicide last month, said he remained a Hindu and should be buried according to the rites of the religion. Islamic authorities last Friday secured an order in the Sharia religious court — where the family was not represented — that said he had converted to the religion.


■HONG KONG

Smuggling tunnel unearthed

Authorities said on Sunday they had cracked a cross-border smuggling network that ferried electronic goods to China through a 600m tunnel. “It is the first of its kind to have been detected,” the city’s customs department said in a statement, adding that 12 people had been arrested in connection with the operation. Police and customs officers in the former British colony on Friday discovered the opening of the tunnel in Ta Kwu Lin, near the border with the southern boomtown of Shenzhen. Goods were smuggled through the tunnel — which measured just 15cm in diameter — using an elaborate system of fiber-optic cables and electronic pulleys, a spokesman for the customs department said. He estimated that as much as HK$10 million (US$1.28 million) in electronic goods could be smuggled through the tunnel each night. Goods included mobile phones, computer motherboards and hard disk drives.


■JAPAN

Executions hit record high

The justice minister, dubbed the “grim reaper” for ordering a record number of executions, has defended the death penalty as “civilized” but said he loses sleep over signing the orders. Thirteen people have been hanged in Japan since Kunio Hatoyama took office in August, a record high for the period. Japan lifted a de facto moratorium on executions in 1993. “This is civilization,” Hatoyama said in an interview published yesterday in the Shukan Post weekly. The death penalty enjoys wide public support in Japan, which has one of the world’s lowest crime rates.


■VIETNAM

Shooter kills two, self

Two people were killed and another person was injured in the north over the weekend in the country’s second deadly shooting spree in less than a month, a police officer said yesterday. Nguyen Van Hoan, 46, shot dead a 64-year-old woman and a 22-year-old man with a shotgun on Saturday night, said Hoang Anh, chief of the city’s police department. The shooting took place in a small restaurant in Lang Son City, 135km northwest of Hanoi. Hoan also shot and injured Phuong Van Truong, 23, at the restaurant and then killed himself a few hours later on a hill near the city, the police officer said.


■CAMBODIA

Driver kills five in crash

A Korean driver killed five members of one Cambodian family while speeding under the influence of alcohol, police said yesterday. Police said grandparents Yiet Tann, 44, Chrun Kimsry, 43, and their daughter Yeit Srey Sros, 24, died instantly when the unnamed Korean collided with their motorbike late on Saturday, and Sros’ daughters Hun Phalnyta, four, and baby Hun Phalnyta died in hospital. “The Korean guy was drunk and driving very fast on the wrong side of the road,” a traffic police official from Chom Chao district on the outskirts of the capital said. He said the identity of the Korean had yet to be determined.


■CHINA

Mining accident kills 21

An accident in a northern coal mine has left 21 miners dead, state press reported yesterday, citing a local provincial mining bureau. The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, but miners were first reported trapped in the mine in Shanxi Province on Saturday morning, the China News Service said. Twenty-one miners were confirmed dead, while 11 others either escaped themselves or were rescued, it added.

■ SPAIN

Several injured in bull run

Several people were injured in the first bull run of the season yesterday in Pamplona, northern Spain, during the annual San Fermin festival, radio and TV reports said. The disorderly four-minute chase featured lone bulls, some of which cornered runners. Hundreds of runners jostled with each other. At least eight people were taken to hospital. Most of them were injured while tripping and falling. The nine-day festival celebrated in honor of the city’s patron Saint Fermin opened on Sunday with the traditional firing of a rocket from the balcony of the city hall.

■ AUSTRIA

Chancellor accepts election

The vice chancellor and leader of the conservative People’s Party said yesterday that he has sought an early election. The chancellor — his Social Democratic rival — accepted the challenge, but said he would not be running again for the post. The moves by the two top officials in Austria’s governing coalition seemed to indicate that an early national election is now likely, but Parliament would have to approve it first. Vice Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer, who is also Austria’s finance minister, said at a hastily called news conference yesterday that he would call for the election while meeting with senior People’s Party officials today.

■ PORTUGAL

Fire prompts evacuation

A fire in central Lisbon prompted the evacuation of dozens of people overnight in the Portuguese capital, media reported yesterday. The fire was reported to be under control. The blaze was believed to have started in an uninhabited building, where drug addicts sometimes stayed. It affected two nearby buildings. Several hotels were also preventatively evacuated. About 150 people sought shelter in a nearby cinema. Two among the nearly 100 firefighters battling the flames were reported injured.

■ UNITED KINGDOM

Bootees for sniffer dogs?

Police sniffer dogs may have to wear bootees when searching Muslim houses or mosques so as not to cause offense, the Sunday Times newspaper said on Sunday. Many Muslims consider dogs unclean and avoid contact with them. The Association of Chief Police Officers is drawing up guidelines on police dogs that will respect cultural sensitivities, the paper reported. The guidelines are expected to go out to all police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland later this year. A leading British imam, Ibrahim Mogra, described the bootees as unnecessary. He told the Sunday Times: “I know in the Muslim community there is a hang-up against dogs, but this is cultural. Also, we know the British like dogs; we Muslims should do our bit to change our attitudes.”

■ RUSSIA

Heavy rain cuts power

Torrential rain left more than 25,000 people without electricity yesterday near the southern Russian resort town of Sochi, host city of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, Interfax news agency reported. Seven resorts on the Black Sea coast just north of Sochi lost electricity, and 4,000 people were left without fresh drinking water when their supply systems broke down, an official from the emergency situations ministry said. The government has pledged to spend some US$12 billion to transform the greater Sochi area ahead of the Olympics, with much of the money earmarked for upgrading the electricity and transport networks.

■ AFGHANISTAN

Canadian soldier killed

A Canadian soldier with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) died in an explosion that hit a patrol in the volatile southern region yesterday, a commander said. Private Colin William Wilmot was taking part in a security patrol when an explosive device blew up near him, Canadian commander Brigadier General Denis Thompson said in a statement. There was no claim of responsibility but the blast was similar to scores by Taliban insurgents who are particularly active in Kandahar, the birthplace of the religious movement that was in government between 1996 and 2001. Canada has deployed 2,500 soldiers in the south as part of the 40-nation ISAF, which numbers about 53,000 soldiers. The latest death brings the Canadian death toll in the country since 2002 to 87 soldiers and one diplomat.

■ WORLD HERITAGE

UNESCO adds heritage sites

The UN cultural agency UNESCO approved three new additions on Sunday to its prestigious list of world heritage sites. At the annual meeting of the World Heritage Committee, UNESCO voted to expand the list. Added are Saudi Arabia’s archeological site al-Hijr, Mauritius’ Le Morne cultural landscape and an earthen architectural site in the southern Chinese province of Fujian, the so-called Fujian Tulou, a grouping of 46 buildings that date from the 12th to the 20th centuries. Further sites for which UN member countries have applied for world heritage designation were to be considered on yesterday. In all, UNESCO is considering applications for 41 sites during the annual gathering.

■ VENEZUELA

Military alarmed by Chavez

Military officers have expressed growing alarm at attempts by President Hugo Chavez to turn the armed forces into a political instrument of his socialist revolution. One general has been detained and hundreds of other officers reportedly sidelined for protesting against the ideological drive. Chavez has ordered the armed forces to adopt the Cuba-style salute “Fatherland, socialism or death” to put the institution at the heart of his effort to transform the country. Pastors from the recently formed pro-Chavez Reformed Catholic church have been installed as army chaplains to weaken the influence of the traditional Catholic church, which is hostile to the president.

■ MEXICO

Fourteen killed in bus crash

A collision between a passenger bus and a smaller bus left 14 people dead in the south, according to reports on Sunday. Another 20 people were injured, some seriously, in the wreck on Saturday evening near the town of Tantoyuca in northern Veracruz, a state on the country’s southern Gulf Coast. Eleven of the dead were passengers on the smaller bus.

■ MEXICO

US cargo plane crashes

A US cargo plane crashed on Sunday onto a roadway as it approached an airport in northern Mexico, killing the pilot and wounding the copilot, local police and the airline said. The plane belonging to Michigan-based company USA Jet Airlines had picked up a load of auto parts in Ontario, Canada and stopped to clear US customs in Shreveport, Louisiana. It then departed for Mexico and was preparing to land at Plan de Guadalupe airport near the town of Ramoz Arizpe in Coahuila state when it crashed before dawn on Sunday, according to USA Jet Airlines vice president Don McNeff.
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