Taipei - Two Taiwan men have been arrested after being accused of extorting money from racing pigeon owners and using pigeons to pick up the ransoms, a newspaper reported Thursday.
Chung Jung-chi, 46, and Bao Wen-chin, 39, were arrested Wednesday in Taoyuan County in northern Taiwan for allegedly kidnapping nearly 100 racing pigeons and extorting almost 1 million Taiwan dollars (30,000 US dollars), the China Times reported.
Cotabato City, Philippines - A broadcast journalist was killed by unidentified gunmen in a southern Philippine city, a police official said Thursday.
Badrodin Abas, 38, was shot in the head by two motorcycle-riding gunmen late Wednesday in Cotabato City, 930 kilometres south of Manila, according to the city's police chief, Senior Superintendent Willie Dangane.
Dangane said the victim, a broadcaster for a radio station in Cotabato, was riding in his van when the suspects blocked it and shot him in the head.
Hanoi - The prosecution of two senior government officials for embezzling more than 50,000 dollars from a state-funded IT project could tarnish the reputation of former Vietnamese prime minister Phan Van Khai, a prominent lawyer said Wednesday.
Vietnam announced Monday it would try Vu Dinh Thuan, 67, former deputy head of the Government Secretariat, and his former assistant Luong Cao Son, 52, for alleged embezzlement committed between 2001 and 2007.
The two are charged with submitting inflated expenses and pocketing the difference while administering Project 112, a failed programme to set up a national electronic network for government offices.
Jakarta - The Indonesian Supreme Court sentenced a former senior official from Garuda Indonesia airlines to one year in jail for aiding in the murder of a prominent human rights campaigner who was poisoned on a flight to Amsterdam four years ago, state-run media said Wednesday.
The Supreme Court overturned the lower court's acquittal of Rohainil Aini, the former secretary to the chief pilot of national carrier Garuda Indonesia, linked to the murder of Munir Said Thalib.
The court sentenced Rohainil to one year in prison, saying that she had been proven guilty of falsifying an assignment letter enabling an off-duty Garuda pilot, Pollycarpus Budi Priyanto, to travel on Munir's flight.
Berlin - Only a few years ago the owners of expensive new cars in Germany had every reason to be anxious about thieves stealing their property whereas motorists with older vehicles could relax.
These days the reverse is the case. Electronic security systems have made modern cars so impregnable that car thieves are concentrating on outdated, less well-protected models.
Taipei - Two Taiwan men have been arrested after being accused of extorting money from racing pigeon owners and using pigeons to pick up the ransoms, a newspaper reported Thursday.
Cotabato City, Philippines - A broadcast journalist was killed by unidentified gunmen in a southern Philippine city, a police official said Thursday.
Berlin - Only a few years ago the owners of expensive new cars in Germany had every reason to be anxious about thieves stealing their property whereas motorists with older vehicles could relax.
