TOKYO: Three Chinese coastguard ships sailed through disputed waters off Tokyo-controlled islands in the East China Sea yesterday, the Japanese coastguard said.
The state-owned Chinese vessels entered the 12-nautical-mile territorial waters off one of the Senkakus, which China claims and calls the Diaoyus, at around 9 am and left about two hours later, it said.
Court rejects activist’s plea
BEIJING: A prominent Chinese legal activist defiantly denounced a court as “absurd” on Friday as it upheld his jail sentence for supporting anti-corruption protests, his lawyer said.
Xu Zhiyong, 40, was sentenced to four years in prison in January for backing demonstrations in which a handful of activists held up banners calling for government officials to disclose their assets.
Beijing’s high court rejected his appeal and upheld its original verdict, his lawyer Zhang Qingfang said.
12 die in road accident
YANGON: Twelve people were killed yesterday when a bus collided with a car and burst into flames on an accident-plagued highway in Myanmar, police said.
“A bus accelerated to pass a car which was crushed under the bus and caught fire,” said police lieutenant colonel Min Aung of the Myanmar Police Force headquarters in the capital Naypyidaw.
Six people on the bus — travelling from eastern Shan State to Yangon — were killed and four were injured, while six car passengers died, he said.
Seven drug mules killed
BANGKOK: Thai security forces shot dead seven suspected drug smugglers and seized hundreds of thousands of methamphetamine pills after a firefight in the Golden Triangle border region, an official said yesterday.
The clash broke out late on Friday in the mountains of northern Chiang Rai province after a border patrol spotted about 10 hill tribe people who refused to stop after crossing the frontier.
Agencies
