Asia Briefs: Mob attacks mosque in Myanmar

Mob attacks mosque in Myanmar

BAGO (Myanmar) • Scores of Buddhists ransacked a mosque in central Myanmar, forcing Muslims to seek refuge in a police station overnight, officials and residents said yesterday, as tensions between the two groups continued to plague the South-east Asian nation.

The most recent violence erupted on Thursday as a mob of about 200 Buddhists rampaged through a Muslim area in a village in Bago province following an argument between neighbours over the building of an Islamic school.

Bouts of anti-Muslim violence have left scores dead across Myanmar since 2012.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE


Hun Sen pays fine for riding without helmet

PHNOM PENH • Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday paid a fine to traffic police for not wearing a helmet during his motorcycle ride last week in south- western Koh Kong province.

The Prime Minister, with a helmet on, rode a motorcycle from his house near the Independence Monument in Phnom Penh to a police station about 500m away yesterday morning to pay the 15,000 riel (S$4.95) fine.

"(We) cannot use the rights of the Prime Minister or the parliamentary immunity to conceal the mistake we have committed," he told reporters later.

XINHUA


Sichuan cops probing deaths of musk deer

CHENGDU • Police in south- west China's Sichuan Province are investigating the deaths of more than 10 forest musk deer, which have the country's highest level of protection.

Villagers spotted the bodies of the animals on a mountain in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze on Wednesday, before finding more than 200 wire snares on the mountainside, a forest police spokesman said yesterday. Forest musk deer is the smallest of all musk deer species.

XINHUA

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on June 25, 2016, with the headline Asia Briefs: Mob attacks mosque in Myanmar . Subscribe