■INDONESIA
Liquor suspected in deaths
Twenty-five people including four foreigners have died over the past two weeks, possibly after drinking homemade liquor laced with methanol on the islands of Bali and Lombok, officials said on Tuesday. Police spokesman Gde Sugianyar said 20 others fell ill and were hospitalized after consuming arak, a home-brewed rice liquor. Two people have been detained in connection with the poisonings, he said. Blood and urine samples have been sent to the National Police Laboratory in Denpasar to determine the exact cause of their death.
■PHILIPPINES
Bomb kills soldier, civilian
Suspected Muslim rebels detonated a bomb at a creek where troops were washing their laundry yesterday, killing a soldier and a civilian woman and wounding four others. Army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Ponce blamed Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas. Rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu said it was not clear whether guerrillas or residents angry at losing their homes in military operations were involved. The blast hit near a creek in Maguindanao Province as soldiers were washing their clothes not far from a military detachment. The homemade bomb was remotely detonated using a cellphone.
■CHINA
Milk stations shut down
Authorities have shut down nearly 4,000 milk collection stations for failing to meet safety standards since tainted milk products were blamed for sickening hundreds of thousands of babies and killing six children, the official Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The government has inspected all of the country’s 20,393 milk collection stations since last November, the China Dairy Industry Association said. Authorities found that 3,908 lacked testing equipment or were not sanitary, it said. Milk collection stations were found to be the weak link that caused milk contaminated with melamine to be sold on the market. “All the working milk stations have been under close supervision,” the association said.
■PAKISTAN
Students still missing
Around 40 students from an army-run boarding school were still believed to be in Taliban captivity yesterday, one day after the military said all those kidnapped had been rescued, officials said. “More than 40 students and two teachers are still missing,” said Sardar Mohammad Abbas, an official in the town of Bannu where the students had been headed. Tribal elders were mediating with the militants to secure their release, he said. A convoy of about 30 vehicles carrying staff and students from the college at the start of summer holidays was ambushed on Monday.
■CHINA
Woman arrested in murders
A woman has been detained for allegedly killing a couple by putting poison in their table salt, which then sickened 82 people who attended their funeral, state media said yesterday. Wu Fang, 28, is alleged to have added a highly toxic chemical called thallium sulfate to her neighbors’ table salt in April over a real estate feud, Xinhua news agency quoted local police as saying. Wang Shunai died in Laiwu, Shandong Province, on May 7 and her husband passed away a few days later, Xinhua said. Around 90 people attended Wang’s funeral and had lunch at the victims’ house, where they also consumed the poisoned salt. Eighty-two fell sick, of which 22 were hospitalized, Xinhua said.
■POLAND
Smuggled tortoises found
Customs at the Ukrainian border on Tuesday found 121 Central Asian tortoises, a threatened species, bound so tightly in black tape that their heads could barely squeeze out from their shells. Customs spokeswoman Malgorzata Eisenberger said officers arrested a 34-year-old Ukrainian man allegedly attempting to cross the border with the animals. The 121 tortoises were destined for markets in Poland where they sell for 200 Polish zlotys (US$62) to people who generally want them as pets — a much higher price that they would get in impoverished Ukraine, she said. Eisenberger said a customs sniffer dog discovered the tortoises bound with black tape and stacked in a converted gasoline tank of the suspect’s car.
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