Alert on Kelantan beach after drowning

KOTA BARU • Malaysian police have urged the authorities to declare a stretch of beach in Kelantan unsafe for swimming after five people from one family drowned last Friday while holidaying there.

Police have called on the local authorities to put up a signboard to warn off swimmers at Tok Bali beach in Pasir Puteh district, about 40km south of the Kelantan capital of Kota Baru, saying few non-locals knew that the area was unsafe.

THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK

Thai poaching case focuses on faeces

BANGKOK • Thai officials will test human faeces found at a campsite in a wildlife sanctuary to try to prove their case against a tycoon accused of poaching a leopard.

Construction magnate Premchai Karnasuta has denied poaching charges levelled against him and three others. They were arrested earlier this month in the sanctuary in western Thailand where rangers stumbled on their camp and found guns and animal carcasses.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Xinjiang plans to help its poor

SHANGHAI • China's north-western Xinjiang is planning a poverty relief scheme targeting the restive region's 22 poorest counties, the official Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.

The three-year poverty relief plan would target counties in the Xinjiang prefectures of Kashgar, Hotan, Kizilsu and Aksu, and would look to lift 400,000 local people out of poverty this year.

REUTERS

India wedding blast: Death toll hits 18

AJMER (India) • Rescuers discovered nine more bodies yesterday beneath the ruins of an Indian hotel, bringing the known death toll from an explosion which tore through a wedding party to 18, an official said.

A gas cylinder exploded late on Friday at the hotel in the city of Beawar, in the western state of Rajasthan, reducing the venue to ruins and sparking a huge fire.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE