■INDIA
Floods kill at least 12
Twelve people were killed and more than a dozen injured after heavy overnight rains swept away slum dwellings in Mumbai, police said yesterday. About 15 to 20 homes, most of them illegal shanties, were washed away in a landslide in the Andheri District, senior police officer Amitabh Gupta was quoted as saying by the domestic Press Trust of India news agency. Landslides are common during the annual monsoon season, which lasts from June until September.
■BANGLADESH
Officials avoid wearing suits
Dhaka has told government officials to avoid wearing suits, jackets and ties during the sweltering summer to save electricity used on air conditioning. The Cabinet announced its decision on Tuesday, saying officials should wear open-necked shirts and trousers — changing a dress code that had been in place since 1982. Mid and senior-level officials would previously don a suit even in the March to November summer months, when temperatures can reach 40ºC. The change is the latest in a series of government steps to try to save electricity in the country, which suffers chronic power shortages even though only 45 percent of its 150 million people have access to electricity.
■MALAYSIA
TV ad angers Indonesia
Kuala Lumpur sought to allay anger in Indonesia yesterday over the use of a Balinese dance in a promotional spot for a TV documentary series on Malaysia, with officials laying the blame on cable network Discovery Channel. The clip sparked outrage in Indonesia, with hundreds staging rallies and accusing Malaysia of stealing the Pendet dance. Cultural Minister Rais Yatim said the mistake was committed by Discovery Channel, which produced the clip to promote its series Enigmatic Malaysia. On Tuesday, about 30 Indonesians pelted the Malaysian embassy in Jakarta with rotten eggs.
■AUSTRALIA
Sydney bigwig gunned down
A property developer who once tried to sue the sultan of Brunei was gunned down in front of his young son outside their exclusive Sydney home, police said yesterday. Michael McGurk, 45, was shot once in the head by a lone gunman as he stepped from his luxury Mercedes in the harborside suburb of Cremorne with his 10-year-old son on Thursday night, Superintendent Geoff Beresford said. Beresford would not confirm claims McGurk had feared a hitman was on his trail and had approached police to ask for protection, but said the developer appeared to be the victim of a callous and “very targeted” act. “We are very open-minded at the moment but what I can confirm is the deceased is very well-known to the police,” he said. McGurk, who in 2007 unsuccessfully tried to sue the Sultan of Brunei over an alleged US$8 million agreement to buy a 400-year-old gold-lined miniature Koran, was alive when police arrived but died a short time later.
■SRI LANKA
Former Tigers find jobs
A group of former child soldiers from Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels have won jobs on construction sites in Malaysia after undergoing re-training, the government said on Thursday. The seven men were among hundreds of former child soldiers who surrendered before government troops defeated the Tigers in May. Now aged between 19 and 21, the seven joined the Tigers’ ranks as children. Some former fighters are not charged over their involvement with the rebels and undergo training in plumbing, masonry, carpentry and electrical work.
RSS