RI maid facing death in double murder
RI maid facing death in double murder
SINGAPORE: A 22-year-old Indonesian maid appeared in a Singapore court on a double murder charge on Tuesday, accused of stabbing her employer and a three-year-old daughter and setting fire to their room.
Sundarti Supriyanto faces the death penalty if convicted of the killings.
Firemen found the bodies of Angie Ng, 34, and her daughter Crystal Poh inside a blazing office two weeks ago while Sundarti was outside "screaming hysterically" and clutching Ng's 18-month- old son Leon, the local media reported. The maid and baby both had burns to their faces.
Sundarti, said to have been working for Ng for just two weeks before the fire, was arrested on Monday after being discharged from a hospital burns unit. A surveillance camera at a nearby service station had filmed Sundarti buying a can of petrol a few hours before the fire erupted. --AFP
;AP;KOD; ANPAu..r.. Aglance-Thailand-Myanmar Myanmar stops buying power from Thailand over border tensions JP//ASEAN
Yangon stops buying power from Bangkok
MYANMAR: Yangon has stopped buying electricity from Thailand for two major trading towns along their border, officials said on Tuesday amid frayed relations between the two countries over a military clash last month.
Hundreds of homes, shops, hotels, casinos and night clubs in Myanmar's Tachilek town across Thailand's northern border went dark on Monday night after Myanmar authorities unplugged the power supply, Thai officials said. Large parts of Myawadi, another border town, were also blacked out.
Tachilek and Myawadi have been closed since May 21, a day after Myanmar accused the Thai military of shelling its territory in support of ethnic Shan rebels attacking Myanmar army outposts.
Myanmar has closed major border crossings with Thailand, banned advertisements of Thai products, expelled Thai workers and banned visits of official Thai delegations. --AP
;REUTERS;KOD; ANPAu..r.. Aglance-Thailand-torture Torture by Thai police and army widespread-Amnesty JP/9/ASEAN
Thai police and army accused of torture
THAILAND: Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Thailand's police and army of widely using torture in prisons and while interrogating criminal suspects.
The London-based human rights watchdog said in a new report ethnic minorities were particularly vulnerable to abuse and it called on the government to investigate torture and punish officers found responsible.
"Torture should not be accepted as normal behavior -- it is a gross abuse of power," the report said.
It said the police and army routinely used torture and ill- treatment in detention, shortly after arrest, during transport of detainees and in military drug rehabilitation camps set up to end addiction to opium amongst hill-tribe people.
Amongst examples of torture cited by the human rights group was the case of a suspect in the high-profile murder of British backpacker Kirsty Jones in 2000. --Reuters