■CAMBODIA
Thai ‘spy’ pardoned, set free
A Thai man convicted and then pardoned for spying on Thailand’s fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was released yesterday. The release of Siwarak Chothipong came as Thaksin paid a visit to the country that could reignite diplomatic tensions between Bangkok and Phnom Penh. Siwarak, 31, a Thai employee of the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, left Prey Sar prison early yesterday in a three-car convoy after receiving a pardon from King Norodom Sihamoni on Friday, witnesses said.
■BANGLADESH
Doctors face drug tests
Authorities at the country’s only medical university said yesterday they had introduced drugs tests for doctors after allegations of rampant narcotics abuse. Pran Gopal Dutta, vice-chancellor of Bangabandhu Medical University in Dhaka, said the decision was taken after the death of a doctor because of an alleged drug overdose. “We will do the dope test on a case-by-case basis. A doctor must undergo the test if he is suspected of using substances,” he said. The mass-circulation daily Jugantor quoted officials as saying that at least 50 doctors at the medical university had been found to be addicted to substances.
■AFGHANISTAN
UK bishop ‘praises’ Taliban
The Taliban can be admired for conviction to their faith and sense of loyalty to one another, the new bishop of Britain’s armed forces said in comments published late on Sunday. The Church of England’s Right Reverend Stephen Venner said it would be harder to reach a peaceful solution to the war if the Taliban insurgents were all portrayed as “pure evil.” “There’s a large number of things that the Taliban say and stand for which none of us in the west could approve, but simply to say therefore that everything they do is bad is not helping the situation because it’s not honest really,” he told the Daily Telegraph in comments published on its Web site. “The Taliban can perhaps be admired for their conviction to their faith and their sense of loyalty to each other.”
■CHINA
Woman executed in Guizhou
A woman in the southwest was executed after being convicted of forcing 22 schoolchildren into prostitution, state press said yesterday. Zhao Qingmei was put to death in Guizhou Province “in recent days” after her final appeal was rejected, the Guizhou Daily reported. Zhao was convicted with six others of forcing the 22 pupils, some of whom may have been as young as six, and an older girl into prostitution in the impoverished mountainous province from March to June 2006, the paper said. Zhao was also convicted of aiding her husband in the rape of a child, it said. The report said the other defendants, including Zhao’s husband, were given sentences ranging from life sentences to death with a two-year reprieve.
■INDIA
Traffic accident kills 21
Police said at least 21 people died in a traffic accident in the east. Surajit Kar Purakayastha, inspector-general of police, said a bus collided head-on with a tractor-driven carriage on Sunday on the outskirts of Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal state. He said it was not immediately clear if all the victims were aboard the bus or whether some of them were aboard the carriage. Rescuers used gas cutters to open the mangled frame of the bus to remove the bodies. Deadly traffic accidents are common due to overloading of aging vehicles, reckless driving and poorly maintained roads.
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