■PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Police under curfew
A nighttime curfew has been placed on all police barracks in Port Moresby after investigators discovered a recent bank robbery was planned inside one of the barracks, media reported. The 6pm to 8am curfew will last for three months, the National newspaper said yesterday. Metropolitan police commander Fred Yakasa said he hoped the curfew would minimize unlawful activities inside the eight barracks. “Wild parties, consumption of illegal drugs and other unlawful activities had given the police barracks a very bad name. This must stop,” Yakasa told the newspaper. “Now we have cockroaches, rats, pigs, dogs, devils, chickens and you name it; it is a place for just about anybody to walk in and out, and I intend to stop these kinds of unlawful and illegal movements in and out of [police] barracks.”
■JAPAN
Bomb threat was a ‘prank’
A South Korean man who threatened to bomb Air China planes during the opening of the Olympic Games has told police that he was only playing a prank, a report said yesterday. Lee Hyon-sa, a 33-year-old company worker who lives in Japan, turned himself over to police near Tokyo on Sunday and admitted he made the threat that caused an Air China flight to turn around mid-air, a police spokesman said. Lee told police during interrogation that he sent the threat by e-mail “to fool around,” Jiji Press said, quoting police sources.
■BANGLADESH
Teacher fired for cutting hair
A teacher has been sacked after he chopped off chunks of his students’ hair to punish them for being naughty, the school’s headmaster said yesterday. Aminul Islam said the teacher started snipping because he could not control the pupils, aged 14 and 15. “Faruq Hossain took out a pair of scissors and began cutting his students’ hair. In total he gave 14 students a haircut, one after the other,” he said. “They were shocked and stunned.” Authorities investigated the incident at the Satkhira government school following complaints from parents, Islam said. “He has been banned from the school. He’s not allowed anywhere near the premises.”
■SRI LANKA
Troops attack rebels
National troops killed 115 Tamil Tiger rebels in weekend fighting in the far north of the island, the military said yesterday, as government forces continued their push into the rebels’ northern stronghold. Government jets also bombed rebel positions in rebel-held areas in the north, military officials said. “Troops had killed 60 LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] terrorists and 28 were wounded from Sunday’s confrontations,” said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, adding that three soldiers were also killed and 12 wounded. The LTTE said air raids had killed two civilians, including a school teacher.
■NEW ZEALAND
Chopper crashes in forest
A helicopter carrying conservation workers crashed yesterday in a thick forest on South Island, injuring two people, a rescuer said. The Hughes 369 was carrying a pilot and three conservation workers when it went down in the Haast-Paringa cattle track in the South Westland region, rescue helicopter pilot Steve Batchelor said. The helicopter did not catch fire on impact, “but it was badly broken up after smashing through the forest canopy to the ground,” he said. The pilot suffered a broken leg, and one of the conservation workers suffered a suspected broken leg. Both were flown to a hospital in Greymouth for treatment, he said.
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