■SRI LANKA
Tamil journalist jailed
The High Court yesterday sentenced a Tamil journalist to 20 years in prison after convicting him on terrorism charges, officials said. J.S. Tissainayagam, 45, who contributed to the local Sunday Times and ran a Web site, Outreachsl.com, that focused on the island’s Tamil population, was found guilty of causing “racial hatred” and “supporting terrorism,” a court official said. The court found that he had received money from the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to fund his Web site. Tissainayagam has been in custody since his arrest in March last year, despite appeals by local and international media rights groups for his release. He is the first Sri Lankan journalist to be convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act enacted in the early 1980s. His lawyers said they would file an appeal.
■MYANMAR
Suu Kyi to renovate home
Detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi plans to renovate her crumbling lakeside home to keep out trespassers, her lawyer said yesterday. The Nobel peace laureate’s house arrest was extended by 18 months earlier this month for violating her detention rules after a bizarre incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her Yangon residence in May. Nyan Win, one of her lawyers and the spokesman for her National League for Democracy party, said Suu Kyi had been in contact with an architect about making renovations. “She worries for the security of her house and that’s why she wants to repair it,” he said. “It is to prevent another trespassing.” Nyan Win said Suu Kyi would pay for the renovations.
■VIETNAM
Dissident blogger detained
A blogger who criticized the Communist Party’s policies has been detained by police, his close friend said yesterday, days after another popular blogger was fired from his job at a state-controlled newspaper. Bui Thanh Hieu, who writes his blog under the pen name “Nguoi Buon Gio” or “Wind Trader,” was taken into police custody in Hanoi on Thursday, said a close friend, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. The friend said that on Sunday she talked to Hieu’s wife, Lien, who said she spoke briefly to her husband while he was in the police station on Thursday. Hieu’s postings have been critical of the party’s handling of its relations with neighboring China and land disputes with the Roman Catholic Church. Hieu, 37, has also criticized a controversial government-backed bauxite mining project in the central highlands. Police declined to comment.
■CHINA
Six killed by lightning
Six farmers were killed in Anhui Province on Sunday when the hut they were sheltering in during a storm was struck by lightning, Xinhua news agency reported. Another farmer in the hut was injured and taken to hospital, Xinhua quoted local officials as saying.
■CHINA
Official blames Internet
The women’s volleyball team spend too much time surfing the Internet, which directly contributed to their poor performance at the recent world grand prix in Japan, a senior official said yesterday. China, whose women have won two Olympic and multiple world volleyball titles, finished fifth with a young team in Tokyo last week. “They spend too much time online after a match or training, are too self-centered and haven’t enough direct and close interaction,” Li Quanqiang, deputy director of the nation’s volleyball administration, told the China Daily.
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