Bank robbed in world's tallest buildings
Bank robbed in world's tallest buildings
MALAYSIA: Robbers seized 2.5 million ringgit (US$658,000) on
Tuesday from a bank in the world's tallest buildings --
Malaysia's Petronas Twin Towers -- while scores of tourists and
office workers watched helplessly, police said.
Six men, armed with a single revolver among them, snatched the
cash from two security guards outside a branch office of Maybank,
Malaysia's biggest banking group, in a shopping mall at the foot
of the twin towers, said district police chief Hadi Ho Abdullah.
The guards were taking bags of money to a van headed for the
bank's nearby headquarters when the robbers ambushed them, Hadi
was quoted as saying by the national news agency, Bernama.
The heist occurred at lunchtime, while the area was crowded
with shoppers, office employees and tourists.
The robbers fled on motorcycles parked outside the 88-story,
452-meter buildings, which were the backdrop for a robbery in the
1999 Hollywood crime adventure movie Entrapment, starring Sean
Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. --AP
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Aglance-Cambodia-King
King Sihanouk marks his 80th birthday amid a cloudy future
JP/12/ASEAN
King Sihanouk to mark 80th birthday
CAMBODIA: A healthy King Norodom Sihanouk is to celebrate his
80th birthday on Thursday amid speculation and potential storm
clouds over the future of Cambodia's revered monarchy.
Such talk was once considered taboo but palace leaks have
combined with comments from both the queen and the monarch's
official biographer, Julio Jeldres, to relieve the local press of
that constraint.
At stake is the future of the monarchy and a king who fears
his cherished heritage and lines of succession could be abolished
in favor of a republic after his death.
In what was interpreted as a bid to force the issue with the
Cambodian government, Jeldres made it known -- while Sihanouk was
in China for medical checks -- that the king could abdicate
shortly after his birthday. --AFP
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Aglance-Philippines-mayor
Town mayor shot dead at wedding in Philippines
JP/12/ASEAN
Town mayor shot dead at wedding
PHILIPPINES: A town mayor was assassinated on Tuesday as he
attended a church wedding south of the Philippine capital,
hospital officials said.
Clarence Benwaren, 37, mayor of Tineg town in the northern
Philippines, was shot in the neck as he stepped out of the church
in Calauan town.
Security forces killed the gunman and captured one of his
accomplices, but five others escaped in a van, police officials
said. Police did not immediately say who they suspected of the
crime.
Communist New People's Army guerrillas had previously
threatened the mayor, circulating written statements about their
plan to "punish the Benwaren warlord family." --AFP