TOKYO, Japan

The head of a food processing firm has apologised for selling imported pesticide-tainted rice to snack makers and admitted ordering company employees to go ahead with the sales. The incident came amid high concern in Japan over Chinese products after frozen dumplings last year caused thousands of people to complain of sickness, with 10 hospitalised. The pesticide found in the rice was methamidophos - the same as that found in the frozen dumplings. The rice, which contained five times the allowed level of the pesticide, was intended to be used for manufacturing glue or other industrial purposes.

BALI, Indonesia

Security forces are on high alert as Indonesia prepares to execute the three Islamists convicted over the 2002 bombings. The bombings through packed bars killed 202 people, mostly tourists including 88 Australians. The imminent execution of the bombers is expected sometime in October. Executions in Indonesia are carried out in the dead of night by firing squad.

TAIPEI, Taiwan

Authorities in central Taiwan have turned off the red light at the county's last legal brothel after the death of its pimp aged 87. Ai Le was the last legal brothel in Nantou county in central Taiwan, and police revoked its permit because the 48-year-old business could not be transferred, the Liberty Times reported. Prostitution has been illegal in Taiwan since 1997, and licensing of new brothels stopped in 1974, but isolated illegal brothels can be found all over the island. Brothels licensed prior to 1974 were allowed to keep operating. The closure effectively leaves Ai Le's two prostitutes, aged 40 and 50, jobless, the paper added.

TEMERLOH, Malaysia

A religious teacher faced off with a tiger outside her village.

"I began to recite verses from the Quran to calm myself. And then I saw the tiger just 10 metres away from me. I retreated slowly, all the while watching the animal's movements. I got away and told my husband and the neighbours." A wildlife department spokesman said the complaint is being looked into. Habshah hoped the department would capture the animal quickly.

NEW DELHI, India

Crew on an Air India passenger jet discovered a snake coiled up under a seat and were unable to catch it as it slithered around the plane, the airline said last week. The snake was disturbed during a routine check on the Air India A319 aircraft, which had landed at Delhi airport after a domestic flight from Srinagar. It evaded capture by slipping into an air vent and could not be found even when staff unscrewed panels inside the fuselage, opened all the doors and fumigated the plane. The snake has disappeared.

LHASA, Tibet

Taktser Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama's eldest brother who advocated independence for Tibet, has died in the United States at the age of 86. Rinpoche - whose given name was Thupten Jigme Norbu - died late at his Indiana home after being unwell for several years. News of Rinpoche's death came less than a week after the 73-year-old Dalai Lama was released from a Mumbai hospital, where he was treated for a brief abdominal illness that stirred alarm about his health among his followers.

HONG KONG

A six-year-old schoolgirl has become the seventh child victim of a mystery illness in Hong Kong, health officials said. The girl died, one day after being treated and discharged for fever and vomiting at a hospital emergency unit, the city's department of health said. Her death is the seventh unexplained child death in the past five months and the third in less than a month, a department spokesperson confirmed.

The deaths have caused unease among parents across the city of 6,9 million and provided an uncomfortable reminder of the 2003 Sars outbreak, which killed 299 and infected 1 799 in Hong Kong.

SEOUL, S.Korea

North Korea has denied that a woman arrested in South Korea for espionage had been one of its spies, describing her as "human scum" used by the Seoul government to heighten confrontation. South Korean officials last week announced the arrest of Won Jeong-Hwa, 35, and said she had been recruited by the communist North's espionage agency in 1998. In 2001 she settled in South Korea, posing as a defector, and allegedly offered military officers sexual favours to collect secret information for Pyongyang. North Korea described Won as "human scum crazy for money, vanity and swindling."

BEIJING

A university student in China has been jailed for 18 months for hacking into a government website and posting a fake earthquake alert. The computer science student, surnamed Jia, hacked into the Shaanxi Provincial Seismic Bureau's website on May 29 and posted a warning that a strong earthquake would hit the province that night, according to the weekend report. His report immediately caused panic as people were still nervous following the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that rocked China's south-west on May 12 and left nearly 88 000 people dead or missing. Jia's posting had 767 clicks within 10 minutes.

SINGAPORE

A Singapore businessman who lost US$4.4 million in Las Vegas and then left the United States was ordered by court to pay his debt in a landmark ruling that could impact future Singapore casino debt recovery. Poh Soon Kit returned to Singapore after gambling away millions at Las Vegas casino Caesars Palace, over a six-year period that began in 1992. Singapore's High Court ordered Poh to abide by a 1999 US court ruling and cough up the cash. The court set a new precedent as previously gambling debts incurred in non Commonwealth countries could not be recovered in Singapore.

HANOI, Vietnam

Police in Vietnam have arrested a woman accused of strangling her boyfriend to death with her bra. The 28-year-old boyfriend had beaten the woman when he suspected she was involved with another man. "The woman testified she was infuriated by her boyfriend so she unhooked her bra to choke him as he was lying on the bed in the rented house," a policeman said. Under Vietnam's penal code, a conviction for murder can carry the death sentence but murdering someone under provocation is punishable by up to seven years in prison.