■NEW ZEALAND
Pole loses extradition fight
A Polish man, wanted on charges relating to the collapse of his company in his homeland, has lost a five-year fight against extradition, a news report said yesterday. The Polish government sought the extradition of Slawomir Ryszard Bujak for misappropriating money, vehicles and property as his transport company collapsed in 2004, Radio New Zealand reported. The Christchurch District Court ordered him deported to face trial in 2004 and Bujak has since appealed unsuccessfully to the High urt, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. He also lost an appeal to the Supreme Court to stop Polish authorities from seizing his assets in New Zealand.
■BANGLADESH
Clocks moved forward
The country has set clocks forward by an hour in its first-ever daylight savings time, aimed at easing a national power shortage. “We are doing this to save energy and we hope that people will change their lifestyle accordingly,” said Prime Minister Shekih Hasina, adjusting clocks at her office in a brief ceremony shown live on TV at midnight on Friday. The impoverished South Asian country has an energy shortfall of more than 1,000 megawatts per day. The government hopes the daylight savings system can save 250 megawatts of power per day with less evening use of electric lights, Junior Power and Energy Minister Shamsul Haq Tuku said.
■MALAYSIA
Riot rattles rehab center
Police were looking for 23 people who escaped from a drug rehabilitation center during a riot there, an officer said yesterday. Detainees at the center in northern Penang state set fire to three buildings and several vehicles on Friday, said a local police officer who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to make public statement. People who test positive for drugs are usually convicted of drug use and sent to a rehabilitation center for at least 13 months. The officer said 30 of the center’s 522 patients ran away, but police recaptured seven. He said no one was injured in the riot.
■JAPAN
World’s oldest man dies
Tomoji Tanabe, the world’s oldest man, died in his sleep at his home in the south on Friday, a city official said. He was 113. “He died peacefully. His family members were with him,” said Junko Nakao, a city official in Miyakonojo in Kyushu. Tanabe died of heart failure, she said. Tanabe, who was born on Sept. 18, 1895, had eight children — five sons and three daughters. The former city land surveyor also had 25 grandchildren, 53 great-grandchildren, and six great-great-grandchildren, according to a statement from Miyakonojo city. Briton Henry Allingham, whose 113th birthday was on June 6, is now the world’s oldest man.
■INDIA
US plane forced to land
Air traffic controllers forced a US-chartered cargo plane carrying ammunition to Afghanistan to land at Mumbai airport after it violated Indian air space, officials said yesterday. The Russian Antonov-124 had taken off from the US base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia bound for Kandahar when it flew over the western part of the country late on Friday without authorization, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. “The plane, with its two crew and six passengers, has been moved to the parking bay of the airport under strict security and is awaiting clearance to take off,” an aviation official said.
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