KL police bust Indonesian gang

KL police bust Indonesian gang

MALAYSIA: Malaysian authorities have arrested four Indonesian robbers who allegedly targeted homes of VIPs, news reports said on Sunday.

The so-called Gang Selamat used machetes, axes and crowbars to break into several victims' houses in Kuala Lumpur over the last year, said the deputy chief of criminal investigations, Ramli Din.

Their crime spree ended when police officers acting on a tip arrested them in their central city apartment hideout last week, Ramli told the Sunday Star newspaper.

Police declined to reveal the identity of the gang's victims or how many houses they had robbed, saying investigations were still underway.

It was the second Indonesian robbery gang nabbed this month in Kuala Lumpur, the report added. --DPA

;DPA;APS; ANPAi..r.. ATW-Italy-politics Government crisis in Italy deepens JP/11/ATW

Government crisis in Italy deepens

ITALY: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was expected to formally hand in his resignation to President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on Monday and try to form a new Cabinet, according to unconfirmed reports on Sunday.

The Christian-democrat UDC party had withdrawn its ministers from government, sparked by discontent over the ruling House of Freedoms coalition's stunning defeat in recent regional elections.

UDC party chief Marco Follini said: "We need a new government and a new electoral program," and at the same expressed anger at Berlusconi's threat to hold new elections if the UDC's ministers did not return to the Cabinet.

Follini had stepped down as deputy prime minister.

Without the UDC and a splinter group of the New Socialists, who also withdrew from the coalition, the Berlusconi bloc no longer has a majority in either house of parliament.

The Interior Ministry has already begun making preparations should new elections be called, sources said. --DPA