Thu, May 17, 2012 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  INDONESIA

  Jet’s ‘black box’ found

  Searchers have found the cockpit voice recorder from a Russian passenger jet that smashed into the side of an Indonesian volcano, killing 45 people. The “black box,” collected from the bottom of a 500m ravine on Tuesday, was shattered and badly burned, Tatang Kurniadi, who heads the National Commission on Safety Commission, said yesterday. It had contained both a voice recorder and a flight data recorder, but the latter device remains missing, he said. Experts were analyzing the voice recorder in a lab in Jakarta yesterday, said Mardjono Siswosuwarno, who is heading the investigation.

  SOUTH KOREA

  Contractor jailed for scam

  A businessman has been jailed for three years for supplying potentially defective parts to the country’s oldest atomic power plant, the Busan District Court spokesman said yesterday. The man, identified only as Hwang, was sentenced last Friday for selling recycled turbine valve parts to the Gori nuclear plant near Busan, the spokesman said.

  Hwang, 54, cleaned and painted used parts stolen from the plant’s dump by an employee. He then sold them back to the plant, on three occasions since 2008, disguising them as new products. He pocketed about 3 billion won (US$2.6 million) through the fraud, according to the court. The plant employee who stole the scrapped parts was sentenced to three years in prison last month.

  INDONESIA

  Rare elephant found dead

  A critically endangered Sumatran elephant has been found dead in Aceh Province, an official said yesterday, the second death from suspected poisoning within a month. Villagers found the carcass, missing its tusks, in a river in Aceh Jaya district on Tuesday, local forestry official Armidi said, adding it appeared to have been killed about four days earlier. “According to villagers, the elephant had entered a plantation and was lumbering unsteadily. We suspected it might have been poisoned,” Armidi said, adding that investigations to determine the cause of death were ongoing. “Villagers did not know who took its tusks.” There are fewer than 3,000 Sumatran elephants remaining in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, marking a 50 percent drop in numbers since 1985.

  SOUTH KOREA

  No ties or hand-driers

  Businessmen are being urged to dump their jackets and ties as the summer looms in a bid to save electricity amid tight supplies as offices turn up the air conditioning. The public is also being told that they should carry handkerchiefs to dry their hands, rather than using hot air blowers. “We need all the people to join to curb excessive cooling demand which accounts for 21 percent of summer peak demand,” the economy ministry said in a statement. The statement also ordered 478 big buildings such as department stores and hotels to keep their temperatures at 26?C or above.

  PHILIPPINES

  Malaysian captive freed

  Officials say a Malaysian man has been freed by suspected Abu Sayyaf militants after a year of jungle captivity. Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan yesterday said Mohammad Nazarudin bin Saidin was released on Friday. It was not immediately clear if any ransom was paid for the victim, a truck driver. Police say the victim was seized by the gunmen while buying geckos in Indanan township in May last year. Officials say the kidnappers demanded a ransom, but the victim’s family could not afford the amount.

  COSTA RICA

  Justice minister resigns

  Justice minister Hernando Paris stepped down on Tuesday, citing personal reasons, the fifth member of President Laura Chinchilla’s Cabinet to leave their posts this year. Paris, who also served in the ministry under Chinchilla’s predecessor, Oscar Arias, announced his departure on Facebook five days ago. “I have reached my personal goals as well as the commitments I had with the President,” he said on Tuesday. Paris’ resignation comes at a time of turmoil for Chinchilla’s Cabinet as tax-evasion and corruption scandals have hit her administration in the last two months. There was no indication that Paris was involved in any wrongdoing.

  RUSSIA

  Police uproot protest camp

  Police uprooted a protest camp in central Moscow that had recently become a center of opposition activity. A Moscow court on Tuesday ruled to support a lawsuit by residents of Chistoprudny Boulevard to evict the activists. Residents of what came to be known as the Occupy Abay camp were ordered to leave by noon yesterday, but police moved in at 5am, evicting several dozens. The camp has few permanent residents, and its population fluctuated from several thousand in the evening to less than a hundred at night. Moscow police said more than 20 activists were detained overnight as they resisted eviction. About 20 more have moved to a square in the west of central Moscow.

  UNITED STATES

  ‘Pink slime’ slimmed down

  Beef Products Inc, the maker of a meat product dubbed “pink slime” by food activists, said it is cutting another 86 jobs. Earlier this month, the company said more than 650 positions will be eliminated with the closing of three of its four plants. The new job losses are “directly attributable to a widespread campaign of misinformation” about the company’s ammonia-treated beef, the Dakota Dunes, South Dakota-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. The cuts announced today include corporate staff in South Dakota and reductions at the company’s machine shop and assembly facility in South Sioux City, Nebraska. The company announced earlier this month that it is shutting plants in Amarillo, Texas; Garden City, Kansas; and Waterloo, Iowa, with job cuts effective from Friday next week.

  UNITED STATES

  Man asks friend to shoot him

  Authorities say a New York man had his friend shoot him in the leg because he wanted to know what it feels like to be shot. State police say the shooting occurred on Sunday in the rural town of Stockholm when 25-year-old Shawn Mossow gave in to his friend’s repeated requests and shot him once in the right leg with a .22 caliber rifle. The 24-year-old man is expected to make a full recovery. Police have not released his name. Mossow was charged with reckless endangerment. He is being held in jail on US$10,000 bail.

  KENYA

  One dead in grenade attack

  Police say attackers fired shots and detonated grenades outside a nightclub in the coastal town of Mombasa after they were denied entry, killing one person and injuring four. Aggrey Adoli, the police chief on the coast, said yesterday a security guard died in the hospital while four people were receiving treatment for wounds from the Tuesday night attack. He says the assailants fired shots at security guards who had denied them entry into the club, before detonating the grenades. A pistol was recovered at the scene.
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