DHAKA - SINGAPOREAN authorities have frozen assets worth US$1.6 million (S$2.3 million) belonging to the youngest son of ex-Bangladeshi premier Khaleda Zia, the head of Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission said on Friday.

The government had asked Singapore to investigate assets belonging to Arafat Rahman Koko, 36, arrested in Bangladesh in April 2007 on graft charges, commission director general Colonel Hanif Iqbal told AFP.

DONGGUAN (China) - POLICE held hundreds of protesting workers inside a suitcase factory in southern China to prevent them from staging a public demonstration about a wage dispute on Friday, a worker said from the compound.

The standoff at the Jianrong Suitcase Factory in the southern city of Dongguan is the latest unrest arising from layoffs, poor working conditions and slashed wages in China, where thousands of companies have gone bust in recent months.

CHAMAN (Pakistan) - HUNDREDS of Pakistani protesters on Friday burnt an Indian flag and an effigy of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, underscoring mounting tensions in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

Tribal elders, politicians and residents attended the anti-India rally in the south-western town of Chaman, in Baluchistan province on the border with Afghanistan