JAKARTA - INDONESIA'S main opposition leader, Megawati Sukarnoputri, called for free and fair presidential elections on July 8 as she held her last campaign rally in Jakarta on Tuesday.
BANGKOK - THAI premier Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Tuesday he would invoke a harsh internal security act to prevent protests at a regional summit in Phuket which US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to attend.
The move comes after an incident in April when anti-government protesters loyal to ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra forced the chaotic cancellation of a major Asian summit in the Thai resort of Pattaya.
PHNOM PENH - A RARE survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime's main jail told on Tuesday how torturers ripped out his toenails and gave him electric shocks to try to make him confess to being a CIA agent.
Former mechanic Chum Mey told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes tribunal how he pleaded for his life as he was tortured for 12 days and nights at the 1975-1979 communist movement's Tuol Sleng detention centre.
KUALA LUMPUR - A MALAYSIAN scheme to train local people as maids to reduce dependence on foreign workers has failed due to poor pay, it was reported on Tuesday.
The government last year launched a course to create 'home managers' who were told they could earn up to 2,000 ringgit (S$821) a month - four times what Malaysians commonly pay domestic helpers from Indonesia.
