TAIPEI: A Taiwanese man has miraculously survived a 60-hour ordeal drifting in rough seas off the island’s east coast Tseng Lien-fa was catching baby eels on a beach in Hualien county early Friday when he was swept away by an unexpectedly large wave. Media reports said Tseng managed to grab a floating wooden coffin lid to which he clung until early Sunday. Strong waves eventually swept him onto a beach in the southeastern county of Taitung, 75 kilometres away.
Indonesia jails Muslim radical
JAKARTA: An Indonesian court jailed an Islamic extremist for seven and a half years over an “evil” plot to bomb the Myanmar embassy to avenge the killing of Rohingya Muslims. Achmad Taufiq is one of several men to have gone on trial amid anger in Muslim-majority Indonesia at persecution of the stateless Rohingya in mainly Buddhist Myanmar. Police foiled the plan the night before it was due to take place when they arrested Taufiq in Jakarta.
Classes reopen in typhoon zone
TACLOBAN: Schools reopened yesterday in central Philippine towns for the first time since one of the world’s strongest storms killed thousands two months ago. Crowding into makeshift classrooms built with tarpaulins and plywood, children, many still traumatised, sat as teachers tried to engage them in friendly banter. Mothers refused to leave tents despite appeals from teachers to let the children resume their daily routine. “Only about 50 percent of our school’s nearly 1,000 pupils are back,” lamented Principal Maria Evelyn Encina in the seaside village of San Roque near the central city of Tacloban, where tsunami-like waves triggered by Super Typhoon Haiyan wiped out entire neighbourhoods. She said at least nine students had been among the dead. Agencies
