■JAPAN
Man arrested over exports
Police yesterday arrested a businessman for allegedly trying to export to North Korea two large vehicles that could be put to military use in its missile program, police officials said. Tei Rinsai — a 50-year-old trading house president of unknown nationality also using the name Tadao Morita — allegedly tried to export two tanker trucks to North Korea via South Korea. Media reports said the two vehicles, second-hand tanker trucks, could be used to carry missiles and fuel and serve as launching pads.
■AUSTRALIA
Conservation zone created
The government yesterday announced a new conservation zone off the northeast coast, but rejected environmentalists’ demands for a fishing ban in the Coral Sea. Environment Minister Peter Garrett said fishing boats and cruise ships would continue to have access to the 972,000km² of waters east of the protected Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. But no increase in fishing or cruise ship traffic would be allowed, he said.
■AUSTRALIA
Woman arrested in Phuket
An Australian woman said yesterday she had been wrongfully locked up in a Thai prison for allegedly stealing a bar mat. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Melbourne mother of four Annice Smoel would receive consular assistance as she fights charges over the incident on the island of Phuket, which could lead to a five-year jail term. Smoel, 36, said she spent four nights in a cramped cell with three other inmates and had her passport confiscated after undercover police arrested her as she left a bar on May 3. Smoel, who was released on bail after being charged with theft, said the mat was jokingly placed in her bag by a friend and security footage would show she was innocent. The bar’s owner, Australian Steve Wood, said police initially intended only to chastise Smoel but the situation escalated when she began to abuse them and tried to flee.
■HONG KONG
Teacher convicted over sex
A primary school teacher was facing a jail term yesterday after being convicted of having sex with a girl pupil 280 times starting when she was 12 years old. Chu Chi-wah, 39, was found guilty of 11 counts of having sex with a minor over a two-year period. He will be sentenced on June 8. The girl told police they had sex 10 times a month on average. Chu, who taught her at primary school, began giving her private tutorials when she graduated to high school. They would have sex after the tutorials and her mother allowed her to sleep at his home, the court was told.
■UKRAINE
Tatars mark deportation
About 20,000 ethnic Tatars gathered in the Crimea peninsula on Monday to mark the 65th anniversary of their people’s mass deportation by Josef Stalin and renew demands for greater rights. Protesters rallied in the center of Simferopol, Crimea’s main town, to hear leaders urge the authorities to honor their claims to land and improve living conditions for the descendants of those who returned to their home region. Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko issued a statement expressing sympathy at the suffering of the deportees and saying that Tatar returnees could help build a new Ukraine. Within days of Crimea’s recapture by Soviet Red Army forces, Stalin ordered the deportation of the entire Tatar population of more than 180,000 on May 18, 1944, on grounds that they collaborated with the Nazis.
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