■ KYRGYZSTAN
US officials found in raid
Police have raided a house in Bishkek where they found US embassy officials and soldiers along with arms including machine guns and night-vision goggles, the interior ministry said yesterday. “There were several employees of the US embassy with diplomatic immunity and 10 soldiers who supposedly came from the United States to carry out training with Kyrgyz secret services,” the ministry said in a statement. The US nationals have not been arrested and an inquiry is continuing, a ministry spokesman said.
■ MALAYSIA
Police suspects in drug theft
A drug haul worth 1 million ringgit (US$300,000) has gone missing from police custody, a report said yesterday. The New Straits Times said the 5kg stash of amphetamines that had been stored at police headquarters in southern Johor state was believed to be from the year’s biggest drug bust. The daily said the thieves were alleged to be policemen and that they had used acid to dissolve the padlock to the evidence room where the drugs were kept, while 60 officers were on duty in the building. It cited unnamed sources as saying that a police officer was detained on Saturday for failing a urine test carried out after the drugs were discovered missing on Thursday.
■ JAPAN
Sewage sweeps men away
A fire department spokeswoman said four people were missing after being washed away by a surge of sewage water while working in a manhole in downtown Tokyo. Tokyo Fire Department spokeswoman Masami Komura said rescuers found one of the five workers who were swept away yesterday. He was found floating unconscious in a nearby river. His condition was not immediately known. She says a sixth worker was able to escape when the sewage water suddenly surged through an area where the men were making repairs in the city’s southeast after heavy rains.
■ JAPAN
DPJ not Nazis, Aso says
Japanese ruling party heavyweight Taro Aso, no stranger to political controversy, was under fire yesterday after reportedly appearing to compare the country’s opposition party to the Nazis. The Nikkei business paper said Aso had brought up the Nazis, who were allied with Japan during World War II, in coversation with a senior member of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). “If you look at history, there is an example of regimes like the Nazis taking power as a result of people leaving the ruling party,” Aso reportedly said. “[German people] let the Nazis take power, leaving that consequence,” other papers quoted him as saying. Aso said he was simply criticizing the political stalemate in Japan since the opposition won control of one house of parliament last year. “I do not mean the DPJ are Nazis,” he said.
■ MALAYSIA
Addict sets fire to homes
A drug addict set his home ablaze in a fit of rage after his mother refused to give him 2 ringgit (US$0.65), reports said yesterday. The fire, which was set in the 35-year-old’s room, spread and destroyed three of his neighbors’ homes in the Monday evening incident, which left 20 people homeless, the Malay-language Berita Harian daily said. The suspect’s stepfather, Ibrahim Sulong, said his stepson had hit his 65-year-old wife in the forehead when she refused to give him the money. She then lodged a police report against her son. “As soon as he realised the police were coming to get him, he got angry and set his room on fire,” he said. No injuries were reported.
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