TOKYO: Three South Koreans died during a mountaineering trip in Japan, police said yesterday, adding that rescuers have been unable to retrieve a fourth climber due to poor weather conditions.
The trio were among nine people who disappeared near the 2,728-metre Mount Hinokio in central Japan on Monday. There were no further details on the condition of the fourth climber. The three male victims were found on mountain paths but the circumstances surrounding their deaths were not immediately clear.
Indonesia floods, landslides kill 8
JAKARTA: At least eight people are dead and five are missing after flooding and landslides hit eastern Indonesia, an official said yesterday.
A search and rescue operation is under way, with police and military personnel scouring rubble for the missing, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.
The tragedy came after heavy rain on Monday night caused the Moa-Moa river, which cuts through the city of Ambon on the Maluku chain of islands, to overflow.
China’s poisoned dumpling trial
BEIJING: A Chinese man went on trial yesterday for poisoning frozen dumplings which sickened 13 people in China and Japan, state media reported, in a case that raised tensions between Beijing and Tokyo.
Factory worker Lu Yueting, 39, was said to have injected insecticide into the dumplings because he was unhappy with his pay and did not get on with his co-workers at the Tianyang Food Plant in the northern province of Hebei. The contaminated dumplings were sold in Chengde in Hebei as well as being exported to Japan, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Four people fell ill in China and nine in Japan, it said. Earlier reports said 10 people were sickened in Japan, including a small child.
Abu Sayyaf member arrested in Quezon
MANILA: An alleged member of the Abu Sayyaf bandit group – wanted for kidnapping nurses and workers in Basilan in 2001 – was arrested in Payatas, Quezon City last July 25, officials said yesterday.
Sali Basal Taib, alias Gong-Gong Sali and Abu Husni, has a pending arrest warrant for kidnapping and serious illegal detention issued by Judge Leo Principe of the Isabela Regional Trial Court Branch 1 involving workers of the Golden Harvest Plantation in Lantawan town in 2001, according to Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-National Capital Region chief Senior Superintendent Roberto Fajardo. AGENCIES
