HONG KONG: Hong Kong authorities said yesterday they had arrested two women in possession of more than 12kg of crystal methamphetamine at the city’s airport.
Airport authorities discovered they were carrying 14.5kg of “ice”, according to a customs official, who withheld their nationality. The drugs, worth HK$10.9m ($1.4m), were found concealed inside false compartments of three suitcases carrying men’s clothing, Customs Drug Investigation head Hui Wai-ming said.
Under Hong Kong law, manufacturing and trafficking dangerous drugs carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and a fine of five million Hong Kong dollars.
France rules out oil bias
KUALA LUMPUR: French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault yesterday assured Malaysia that European rules on declaring product ingredients would not “discriminate” against palm oil, the target of environmentalists over its ecological impact.
Malaysia is second only to Indonesia in the production of palm oil, which is blamed for the destruction of huge swathes of rainforest to make way for vast plantations of the palm trees from which the edible oil is derived.
The French Senate last year approved a quadrupling of the tax on palm oil despite protests from major producing nations Malaysia and the Ivory Coast, but the move was later rejected by France’s lower house.
Woman killed in Japan rains
TOKYO: Heavy rains lashed Japan over the weekend, leaving one person dead and two missing, the government said yesterday as it issued a severe storm warning.
A 79-year-old woman was confirmed dead on Sunday after being discovered inside a house that was destroyed by mudslides in Yamaguchi prefecture, on Japan’s southwest coast. An 84-year-old man was missing from the same region after being swept away near a river, local reports said, citing police and other official sources. Also missing was a 24-year-old man who was last seen leaving his home in Shimane prefecture, just to the north of Yamaguchi.
The Japan Meteorological Agency warned of floods and mudslides from “unprecedented heavy rain”, saying the storm was to sweep over central Japan yesterday.
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