■NEPAL
Widows slam dowry offer
About 200 women marched through Kathmandu on Monday to denounce a government scheme to pay cash incentives to men for marrying widows, witnesses said. The government announced a plan last month to pay men the equivalent of US$650 for marrying widows. The protesters shouted slogans such as “You can’t sell your mother” and “We don’t want government dowries.” They were stopped by riot police, but there were no arrests or violence. A protest organizer said widows should be given jobs, better health care and education because men would marry them just for the money and then abandon them.
■SINGAPORE
Toddler survives fall
A toddler survived a fall from an open window of a ninth floor apartment, escaping with cuts to his face and body and a fractured ankle. The Straits Times reported yesterday that Park Sihu, 3, landed in bushes. He was found conscious and crying but clearly traumatized, the paper reported. He had been climbing on a bed beside an open window when he fell. His two elder sisters were in the same room with him, but were busy studying.
■CAMBODIA
Thai arrested over artwork
A Thai construction worker was arrested for living illegally in the country for more than 10 years and for drawing an image of Angkor Wat on his bathroom floor, national media reported. Salavout Khamsan, 35, was arrested in Poipet after neighbors saw the drawing and told the authorities. Poipet police chief Nuth Ly said the man had “desecrated the precious temple which is a World Heritage site.” The provincial police chief said the man’s explanation — that he drew the image out of affection for Angkor Wat, not to demean it — was not good enough.
■MALAYSIA
Swine flu death toll rises
The Health Ministry said yesterday that six more people infected with swine flu have died over the past few days, raising the death toll from the virus to 38. There has also been a big increase of 269 new swine flu cases since Monday, it said. The nation has reported 2,252 swine flu cases since May.
■NEW ZEALAND
Drunk gets lost in hotel
A drunk, naked man lost his way at a Queensland hotel and ended up sleeping in the wrong room, forcing its female occupant to hide in the bathroom, the Southland Times reported. The 29 year-old Australian man had gone back to the hotel with a woman, but got up in the night and wandered into a room where a couple were sleeping. “He was a bit surprised that there were two people in his room and he was butt naked,” Sergeant Steve Watt told the newspaper. As the intruder slept, the startled woman took refuge in the bathroom as her husband called hotel staff. The man could not remember whom he had been with or what room he had been in, and had no clothes or wallet.
■PHILIPPINES
Abductee rescued
Police rescued a kidnapped factory owner and fatally shot all seven suspects in Manila, a police official said yesterday. Michelle Tan, 30, was snatched from her garment factory in Navotas on Sunday. The kidnappers demanded an initial ransom of 2 million pesos (US$42,000), the official said. Police traced Tan using information from her relatives and stormed a house where she was held late on Monday, killing two suspects. The other five suspects were tracked down later.
■RUSSIA
No envoy to Ukraine
Moscow is postponing sending a new ambassador to Ukraine because of a crisis in relations, President Dmitry Medvedev said yesterday, expressing hope ties would improve under a “new leadership” in Kiev. “I want to inform you that under the current anti-Russian course of the Ukrainian leadership, I have taken a decision to postpone sending a new ambassador to Kiev,” Medvedev said in a letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. “Russia hopes a new political leadership in Ukraine will be ready to create relations between our people that respond to the real hopes of our people,” he said in the letter, the text of which was published by the Kremlin. Ukraine is to hold crucial presidential elections on Jan. 17.
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