■SOUTH KOREA
Adoptee accused of murder
Police have arrested a man accused of hiring two hitmen to murder his adoptive mother, reports said yesterday. Police allege the son, identified only as Lee, found the killers online. He allegedly paid them 130 million won (US$103,000) to suffocate the woman who had raised him for more than 30 years after finding him abandoned as a baby. Investigators quoted by the Korea Times and JoongAng Daily said Lee, a gambling addict, decided to kill his mother after she refused to give him any more of her property. Lee claimed the 70-year-old died of diabetes. He inherited property and insurance money totaling 2 billion won, but squandered 1.5 billion of it on gambling. Lee was arrested after friends and relatives of the deceased, along with the insurance firm, raised suspicions.
■VIETNAM
Eggplants sicken 60
Health officials are checking whether pesticides poisoned more than 60 people who ate pickled eggplants, state media reported yesterday. The victims, in Hung Yen Province near the capital Hanoi, were hospitalized with fevers, stomachaches, headaches and vomiting, the Vietnam News reported. Officials were checking if the eggplants were contaminated with preservatives or pesticides, the report said.
■CHINA
Sixty punished for disco fire
Authorities have punished 60 people deemed responsible for a blaze at the “King of the Dancers” disco that killed 44 people in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen. A Web site for the country’s State Council, or Cabinet, said yesterday that 35 people, including the club’s boss have faced criminal charges after the fire at the unlicensed nightclub one year ago. No details were given on the punishment but it was earlier announced a police chief and a fire official were jailed for 13 years and six years, respectively. The government says 25 officials, including the vice mayor, were disciplined within the Communist Party and government. The blaze started when a fireworks show ignited the ceiling in the crowded club.
■HONG KONG
Locker sting nets three
Cocaine dealers are using public lockers in shopping malls and sports centers to drop off large orders of drugs, a news report said yesterday. The revelation came after police arrested three people and seized 2kg of cocaine with a street value of more than US$200,000 in a shopping center in Shatin district. Monday’s sting was set up after officers received information that cocaine was being passed to buyers via public lockers that can be rented for US$0.25 an hour for up to seven days using a password set by the hirer. Two men put 1kg of pressed cocaine in separate lockers and a third man arrived to collect the drugs, the Hong Kong Standard reported. All three were arrested. Buyers paid in advance for the drugs and then collected them with the locker number and password, police said.
■SAUDI ARABIA
One executed for killings
A Saudi man who shot dead two compatriots was beheaded by sword on Monday in the holy city of Mecca in the west of the conservative kingdom, the official SPA news agency reported. It quoted the interior ministry as saying the man, named as Ali Assiri, shot the two others dead in a dispute. Saudi Arabia imposes the death sentence for rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking under the country’s strict Islamic Shariah law.
RSS