80 women, children rescued

YANGON, Myanmar: More than 80 women and child victims of Myanmar’s recent cyclone have been rescued from human traffickers who were scheming to smuggle them to neighbouring countries, a media report said on Thursday. Border police caught the traffickers, who had taken victims of Cyclone Nargis from the Irrawaddy delta to frontier areas, between June 11 to 14, the well-regarded biweekly journal Eleven reported, quoting police. Police Lt-Col Rahlyan Mone, from the force’s human trafficking division, told the Yangon-based journal that victims facing hardship are being enticed with job offers abroad by traffickers disguised as aid workers.



US prisoner freed

SHANGHAI: A US citizen has been released from a jail in China after serving 10 years of a 16-year term, a US official said on Thursday. Jude Shao was released from a Shanghai jail on parole on Wednesday, a US embassy spokeswoman in Beijing, Diane Sovereign, told AFP. ‘US ambassador Clark Randt has spoken to Shao by telephone, confirming and welcoming his release from prison,’ she said. Shao’s case had drawn the attention of the US government at the highest level, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top US diplomats repeatedly calling for his release, she said.



Nine die in BD

DHAKA: Nine people were killed in southeast Bangladesh early on Thursday after days of heavy rain caused two massive landslides, an official said. Administrative officer for Teknaf sub district Altaf Hossen told AFP two men, two women and five children were sleeping in their flimsy homes at the bottom of a hill when the landslides hit. “Nine people died in two separate landslides in the Teknaf sub district, which is in Cox’s Bazar district. Four people died as a result of one landslide and five as a result of the other,” he said. “The landslides happened while those who died were sleeping. We’ve recovered all the dead bodies and there are no reports of missing people.”



Chinese prisoners

BEIJING: Hundreds of prisoners in China’s quake-hit south-western province of Sichuan have had their jail terms reduced for courage shown in relief and rescue work when the disaster struck, state media said on Thursday. A total of 436 prisoners will be released from jail early and more than 1,000 have been praised for ‘protecting state property and/or rescuing survivors’, the official China Daily said. One prisoner, jailed for murder, was released on probation for carrying a handicapped inmate to safety after May’s 7.9 magnitude quake.



Bruce Lee’s home

HONG KONG: A mansion that once belonged to Kung Fu legend Bruce Lee in Hong Kong may be preserved as a museum, giving belated recognition to one of the city’s most famous sons, a newspaper reported on Thursday. Billionaire philanthropist tycoon Yu Panglin had put Lee’s two-storey, 5,699-square-foot town house in an upscale leafy Kowloon suburb up for sale but later changed his mind, according to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.