■PAKISTAN
French tourist released
A French tourist kidnapped three months ago in Baluchistan was released yesterday and handed over to the authorities, senior security officials said. “He has been released this morning, he is with Pakistani officials,” said one of the officials, who declined to be named. The 41-year-old man was snatched on May 23.
■CHINA
Police arrest ‘tomb raiders’
Police have detained 11 suspected tomb raiders who ransacked up to 50 graves in the Chinese capital, most of them dating back to the Qing Dynasty, state media said yesterday. Police said the suspects, all construction workers, were found in possession of coins, amber beads, snuff bottles and other artifacts from the Qing Dynasty (1664-1911), the Beijing Youth Daily said. The suspects were believed to have sold most of the stash on the black market, with one man confessing that he had sold a snuff bottle for 12,000 yuan (US$1,760), it said.
■SINGAPORE
Alleged recruiter arrested
A Nigerian man, believed to be a member of an international drug syndicate, has been detained without bail for recruiting local women as drug mules, the Straits Times reported yesterday. The Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) have arrested Okemawalan Ugo Buchi after four months of investigations. Buchi, 31, was arrested last month, together with an accomplice, a Singaporean woman, who has also been detained for involvement in drug trafficking activities. CNB investigations showed that the suspect would court Singaporean women at nightspots, lived off his girlfriends and eventually offer them jobs to deliver bags of clothing samples to China and Europe. The bags, however, contained drugs such as heroin.
■PHILIPPINES
Canadian killed in drug raid
A Canadian man suspected of being engaged in selling illegal drugs was killed yesterday in a shootout with anti-drug operatives in Manila. The suspect, identified as Antonio Kcompt, fired at agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) who were about to arrest him in a posh neighborhood in suburban Quezon. PDEA spokesman Derrick Carreon said the suspect had been under surveillance for the last two years due to persistent reports that he was a big-time supplier of the party drug ecstasy. Agents recovered more than 100 capsules of ecstasy from Kcompt’s car.
■AUSTRALIA
Traffic disturbs frog sex
Traffic noise could be ruining the sex lives of urban frogs by drowning out the seductive croaks of amorous males, a researcher said yesterday. A well-projected and energetic croak is the male frog’s most important asset in the quest to attract mates to his pond, Melbourne University ecologist Kirsten Parris said. But competition from traffic noise in Melbourne could be a reason why frog numbers have declined in Australia’s second-largest city since her survey of more than 100 ponds began in 2000, she said. “If there are a number of different males calling, the one that sounds the best often gets the girl,” Parris said. She found the distance at which a frog suitor can be heard by a potential mate is slashed by city noise. For example, the popplebonk frog’s call can be heard by females from 800m without background noise. That range shrinks to only 14m near busy roads. University of Sheffield researchers have found British birds were singing at night because their habitats had become too noisy during the day.
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