■INDONESIA
Curator guilty in theft case
The curator of a museum was sentenced yesterday to 18 months in jail for helping to steal six ancient Buddhist statues and replacing them with replicas, a judge said. Suhadi Darmodipuro, who was among four people arrested for the 2006 theft at the Radya Pustaka Museum, said he regretted his involvement in the scam and would not appeal. Presiding Judge Ganjar Susilo found the 70-year-old guilty of helping steal the statues, which date back to the 4th century, and selling them to a Dutch curator for between US$3,500 and US$20,000 each. Replicas made by local stonemasons were put in their place. The scam was uncovered by an ex-staffer at the museum in Java Island’s Surakarta. “I’ve given 50 years of my life to service the museum,” Darmodipuro said after the verdict was handed down. “It was a big mistake. ... I very much regret it and accept this sentence.”
■PHILIPPINES
Blast rocks billiards hall
A hand grenade exploded inside a billiard hall in the country’s north, killing one man and injuring 16 other people, while a bomb found in the volatile south was safely defused, police said yesterday. Baguio police spokesman Virgilio Hidalgo, said investigators believe the blast late on Sunday was linked to a gambling argument. “Definitely, this is not related to terrorism,” Hidalgo said. Meanwhile, In Midsayap township, in southern North Cotabato Province, a man found an improvised bomb inside a plastic container filled with gasoline at a street corner near a gas station. Midsayap police chief Chino Mamburam said police were looking into possible involvement of extortionists or Muslim rebels. The man sold the gasoline, then found a rocket-propelled grenade attached to a cell phone and timer at the bottom. Mamburam said police were puzzled why the bomb was immersed in gasoline, which could spoil the device.
■SOUTH KOREA
Bird flu restrictions relaxed
Authorities said yesterday they had lifted all special restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of bird flu after a series of recent outbreaks. The Agriculture Ministry said in a statement it had slaughtered about 8.5 million birds to combat outbreaks of the disease that began in early April. However, the ministry said no new outbreak had been found since May 12, and that as of Sunday it had lifted all special quarantine measures, such as restrictions on the movement and sale of poultry. The country hopes to report that it is free of the disease to the World Organization for Animal Health in the middle of next month, the ministry said. Under the organization’s regulations, a country can officially declare itself free of the disease if no new cases have been found for three months.
■JAPAN
Man rams car into city hall
A man angered by welfare policy rammed a car loaded with gas canisters and kerosene into a city hall yesterday, injuring two workers, police said. The car driven by Michio Ikawa, 61, burst through the front door of Tondabayashi City Hall, showering employees with shards of glass, a police official said. Ikawa was arrested and police found three gas canisters and containers of a liquid that smelled like kerosene in his car. The impact did not cause an explosion or fire, and it was not clear what the man planned to do with the canisters. Two city employees were cut by flying glass. The police official said Ikawa complained about the city’s welfare policies under interrogation, though it wasn’t clear what specific policy he was upset about.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Estate agents lose sleep
Real estate agents top the list of sleep-deprived professionals in part because of credit crunch worries and a weakening housing market, a survey of British workers published yesterday found. Real estate agents manage to sleep just five hours and 50 minutes a night, the survey of 4,000 workers commissioned by the budget hotel chain Travelodge said. Truck and taxi drivers, hit by soaring fuel prices, sleep just six hours and 16 minutes a night, ahead of bankers, who average six hours and 23 minutes. Health professionals recommend eight hours of sleep. The poll found that media professionals get the most sleep, the report showed, remaining in the land of nod for seven hours and 12 minutes.
■EGYPT
Zambian leader falls ill
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has suffered a stroke, his deputy said yesterday, as the leader remained in intensive care in Egypt where he was due to attend an African Union summit. “I wish to inform the nation that the President has suffered a stroke,” said Rupiah Banda, Zambia’s vice president. The Zambian president had been due to take part in a meeting of the pan-African bloc’s Peace and Security Council on Sunday but was forced to skip it after suffering acute chest pains, before being admitted to hospital. Mwanawasa had his first stroke around two years ago. “The president is still in intensive care. His condition is stable,” a medical source at the Sharm el-Sheikh hospital in the Egyptian Red Sea resort said. “He arrived [on Sunday] with chest pains and is suffering from high blood pressure,” the source said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Smokers quit in numbers
A record number of smokers quit in the first nine months after a smoking ban came into force in England a year ago, according to a survey. The study by Cancer Research UK suggested that the ban contributed to a 5.5 percent fall in smoking rates in the nine months after the law changed. The decline in smoking was the same among men and women and across age groups and social classes. Smoking declined by 1.6 percent in the period before the ban, compared with 5.5 percent in the next nine months. Researchers used the figures to estimate that about 400,000 smokers gave up after the ban. Jean King, Cancer Research UK’s director of tobacco control, said the government should create a five-year plan to cut smoking.
■KENYA
US$1.1bn needed for food
Kenya needs 72 billion shillings (US$1.1 billion) in emergency funding to counter a food crisis that has helped drive inflation over 30 percent, an official said on Sunday. “We urgently need the funds in the next three months to address immediate needs and mitigate the current food crisis,” Agriculture Minister William Ruto said. He spoke after holding talks with four other ministers responsible for livestock, fisheries, co-operatives and water and irrigation in the Rift Valley town of Naivasha. The funds will be used to support the agricultural sector by providing farmers with free fertilizer, creating credit lines and assisting the fish and livestock sectors. Home to 35 million people, Kenya is in the midst of a food shortage worsened by months of post-election violence that killed 1,500 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.
■ COLOMBIA
Owner nabs sleepy thief
A thief surprised by a home owner’s return hid inside a closet and fell fast asleep until he was discovered and arrested on Sunday, police in the port city of Barranquilla said. The 24-year-old man bored his way through a wall to get inside the house in the predawn hours on Sunday, and Police Chief Oscar Gamboa surmised the physical effort and the late hour likely contributed to the thief’s exhaustion. “It looks like he was overwhelmed by sleep,” Gamboa said, adding that when the owner of the house discovered the robbery and checked the house to see what was missing, he found the burglar sleeping with his loot in a closet. The owner had to protect the thief from a neighborhood lynching party while waiting for the police to show, Gamboa said.
■MEXICO
Forecasters eyeing storms
Tropical Storm Boris strengthened unexpectedly to just below hurricane strength on Sunday but remained far from land over the eastern Pacific, forecasters said. The US National Hurricane Center said Boris’ wind speeds had increased to 110kph but it was expected to weaken yesterday. Boris was located 1,225km southwest of the tip of Baja California and was not expected to threaten land, forecasters said. A second tropical storm, Cristina, as about 2,165kms off shore and was not expected to threaten land either.
■MEXICO
Truck crash kills 14
At least 14 people were killed and 28 injured on Sunday when a truck slammed into two passenger buses stopped for repairs on the Pan-American Highway in Chihuahua, police said. “One of the buses stopped due to a mechanical failure and was partially off the road. Another bus stopped behind it. Apparently neither vehicle used warning lights, and a tractor trailer slammed into them,” Chihuahua Federal Police officer Andres Valle said. One bus burst into flames in the crash and 14 people perished in the fire, he said. Officials said the death toll could rise as several of the injured were in critical condition. All the crash victims were aboard the bus that had stopped to help the first bus change a tire. The passengers of the bus with the bad tire had gotten off the vehicle and were unharmed in the accident. The tractor trailer slammed into the occupied bus in such a way that its doors were closed stuck, trapping the people inside when the fire broke out, Valle said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Southern territory rocked
A strong 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck near the South Sandwich Islands, a remote British territory near Antarctica and South America’s southern tip, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said yesterday. The quake, which was 10km deep, took place 283km southeast of Bristol Island and 2,374km southeast of Punta Arenas, Chile, the USGS said. “There is a small possibility of a local or regional tsunami that could affect coasts located usually no more than a few hundred kilometers from the earthquake epicenter,” the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission said in a statement.
■HONDURAS
Navy seizes cocaine cargo
A ship believed bound for the US was stopped off the coast on Saturday and found to be carrying 4.17 tonnes of cocaine, media reports said on Sunday. Six people on board were arrested, the reports said, citing the Honduran navy.
Tunisian President Kais Saied yesterday condemned a European Parliament resolution on human rights calling for the release of his critics as “blatant interference.” The EU Parliament resolution, voted by an overwhelming majority the day before, called for the release of lawyer Sonia Dahmani, a popular critic of Saied, who was freed from prison on Thursday, but remained under judicial supervision. “The European Parliament [resolution] is a blatant interference in our affairs,” Saied said. “They can learn lessons from us on rights and freedoms.” Saied’s condemnation also came two days after he summoned the EU’s ambassador for “failing to respect diplomatic rules.” He also
Tropical Storm Koto killed three people and left another missing as it approached Vietnam, authorities said yesterday, as strong winds and high seas buffeted vessels off the country’s flood-hit central coast. Heavy rains have lashed Vietnam’s middle belt in recent weeks, flooding historic sites and popular holiday destinations, and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. Authorities ordered boats to shore and diverted dozens of flights as Koto whipped up huge waves and dangerous winds, state media reported. Two vessels sank in the rough seas, a fishing boat in Khanh Hoa province and a smaller raft in Lam Dong, according to the
Sri Lanka made an appeal for international assistance yesterday as the death toll from heavy rains and floods triggered by Cyclone Ditwah rose to 123, with another 130 reported missing. The extreme weather system has destroyed nearly 15,000 homes, sending almost 44,000 people to state-run temporary shelters, the Sri Lankan Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said. DMC Director-General Sampath Kotuwegoda said relief operations had been strengthened with the deployment of thousands of troops from the country’s army, navy and air force. “We have 123 confirmed dead and another 130 missing,” Kotuwegoda told reporters in Colombo. Cyclone Ditwah was moving away from the island yesterday and
‘HEART IS ACHING’: Lee appeared to baffle many when he said he had never heard of six South Koreans being held in North Korea, drawing criticism from the families South Korean President Lee Jae-myung yesterday said he was weighing a possible apology to North Korea over suspicions that his ousted conservative predecessor intentionally sought to raise military tensions between the war-divided rivals in the buildup to his brief martial law declaration in December last year. Speaking to reporters on the first anniversary of imprisoned former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol’s ill-fated power grab, Lee — a liberal who won a snap presidential election following Yoon’s removal from office in April — stressed his desire to repair ties with Pyongyang. A special prosecutor last month indicted Yoon and two of his top
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