■AUSTRALIA
Jury split on terror verdict
A former Qantas Airways baggage handler may face retrial on a terrorism charge after a jury failed to agree yesterday on whether he had used the Internet to incite others to commit a terrorist act. The same New South Wales state Supreme Court jury convicted Sydney resident Belal Sadallah Khazaal, 38, on Wednesday of another charge of producing a do-it-yourself jihad book knowing it was connected with assisting in a terrorist act. But the jury were discharged yesterday after they told Justice Megan Latham they could not unanimously agree a verdict on a second charge related to the same 110-page book that Khazaal posted online in 2003.
■AUSTRALIA
Elusive frog found
A tiny frog species thought by many experts to be extinct has been rediscovered alive and well in a remote area of the Queensland state, researchers said yesterday. The 40mm Armoured Mistfrog had not been seen since 1991, and many experts assumed it had been wiped out by a devastating fungus that struck the northern state. But two months ago, a doctoral student at James Cook University in Townsville stumbled across what appeared to be several Armoured Mistfrogs in a creek, said professor Ross Alford, head of a research team on threatened frogs at the university. Conrad Hoskin, a researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra who has been studying the evolutionary biology of north Queensland frogs for the past 10 years, conducted DNA tests on tissue samples from the frogs and determined they were the elusive Armoured Mistfrog.
■JAPAN
Three murderers executed
Three death-row inmates were hanged yesterday, officials said, bringing the number of executions this year to 13 as the country steps up its pace in carrying out the death penalty. The inmates had been convicted of murder in separate cases, the justice ministry said. The government does not announce executions beforehand and carries out the hangings in secret. The ministry identified the executed prisoners as Yoshiyuki Mantani, 68, who stabbed several female teenagers in robberies before killing a 19-year-old; Mineteru Yamamoto, 68, who murdered and robbed a cousin and his wife; and Isamu Hirano, 61, who killed a manager and his wife at a ranch where he had worked.
■VIETNAM
Dead baby found in bag
Airport officials in Ho Chi Minh City said they found a dead baby in the suitcase of a passenger who was about to board a flight to Hanoi on Wednesday. Nguyen Van Quat of the airport authority said Vu Van Dat, 20, told investigators that the day-old baby girl belonged to one of his relatives and had died of natural causes shortly after it was born. Quat says Dat told them his relatives asked him take the body to the family’s home village in Thanh Hoa province, some 160km south of Hanoi. The case has been turned over to local police.
■CHINA
Principal executed for rape
A primary school principal was executed in Gansu Province after being convicted of raping and sexually abusing 39 girls during an 18-year reign of terror, state press said yesterday. Luo Yanlin, 48, was executed on Wednesday — National Teacher’s Day in China, the Lanzhou Morning Post reported. Luo was sentenced for raping and sexually abusing 39 girls aged seven to 14 when he worked at three schools in the province between 1988 and 2006, it said.
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