■AUSTRALIA
Fake war hero unmasked
A celebrated war hero who rose to become head of the Prisoner of War Association of Australia was unmasked yesterday as an impostor who didn’t serve in World War II and never saw the inside of a Japanese prison camp. Rex Crane, 83, is now the subject of a police investigation after admitting to the Age newspaper that he spent the war in Adelaide. Crane told the paper he had never enlisted, never worn a uniform and that what he knew about fighting in the jungles of Malaya or the brutality of the Japanese guards at Singapore’s Outram Road Jail he had gleaned from books. “It looks like the past has caught up, doesn’t it?” he said.
■AUSTRALIA
Indonesians repatriated
A group of 62 Indonesians who sailed to the country have been repatriated after being declared economic migrants rather than genuine refugees, news reports said yesterday. “Someone who is seeking better economic opportunities doesn’t meet the criteria for a protection visa,” Immigration Minister Chris Evans said. The men were flown home on Friday from Christmas Island, where they had been detained since their boat was intercepted off the west coast two weeks ago. Evans said the men had “requested removal” when told they did not qualify for protection.
■CHINA
Bus accident kills 17
Brake failure and overcrowding were blamed for a bus accident that killed 17 people and injured 54 in the south, state media said yesterday. The 30-seat bus was carrying 71 people and flipped while descending a hill on Friday morning in Hunan Province’s Qiyang County, an official from the county’s propaganda office said yesterday. Nine people, including the driver, were declared dead at the scene and eight died after being taken to a local hospital, the official said. An initial investigation indicated brake failure and overcrowding caused the bus to overturn, the Xinhua news agency said.
■SINGAPORE
Thief jailed for nine years
A man who pulled off one of the city-state’s largest thefts in recent memory was sentenced on Friday to nine years in jail, local newspapers reported. Jerry Ee, 36, had admitted stealing valuables worth S$8.16 million (US$5.76 million), including 392 designer watches, from his former employer Cortina Watch in the Christmas Day heist last year, the Straits Times said. A stiff punishment was needed as the theft was one of the “most blatant and audacious acts of criminal breach of trust ever committed by an employee,” sentencing judge Chia Wee Kiat was quoted by the newspaper as saying. “The need to curb this proclivity for criminal activities means that the imposition of a deterrent sentence is all the more necessary,” the judge said.
■FRANCE
Life’s a bitch for pets
In a dog-loving country, every president knows the value of man’s best friend. Former president Francois Mitterrand prized his black labrador and President Nicolas Sarkozy once had a chihuahua named Big. But for ex-presidential pets, life after the Elysee can be a bitch. Former president Jacques Chirac’s miniature white maltese, Sumo, has been banished by the former president after becoming so depressed about leaving the presidential palace that he began routinely savaging his master. Although the Chiracs now live in a vast Paris apartment, Sumo has been on antidepressants to deal with the loss of the presidential garden, where he once roamed freely with a golden retriever named Scott.
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