10 killed in clashes over Bangladesh polls

DHAKA • At least 10 people have been killed and thousands injured in clashes between supporters and candidates of rival parties during the latest Bangladesh local elections, police and poll monitors said yesterday.

Unprecedented levels of violence and allegations of poll-rigging have marred local council elections held in phases since March, with at least 90 people killed in total, according to monitors.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Awami League is looking to tighten its grip on power in the polls, as Bangladesh reels from a protracted political crisis.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Thai speedboat crash: Fourth body found

BANGKOK • The body of a British man missing for four days after a tourist speedboat crashed in southern Thailand was found yesterday on rocks close to where the boat went down, bringing the death toll to four.

The vessel, which was carrying 32 tourists and four crew members, capsized last Thursday after it was slammed by a wave near a rocky stretch of coast on Koh Samui, an island popular with tourists in the Gulf of Thailand.

The accident threw all of the passengers overboard, trapping some under the ship's hull.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Boy left in mountains 'as punishment'

TOKYO • The parents of a seven-year-old Japanese boy missing in the mountains of Hokkaido confessed yesterday that they had left him as a punishment and that he did not get lost during a hike as originally claimed, police said.

More than 150 rescuers and police officers were out searching for Yamato Tanooka for a second day, a police spokesman said. He went missing on Saturday.

His parents originally told the police that Yamato got lost while the family was out walking in the area - a habitat of bears - to pick wild vegetables. But they later admitted that they had lied, the spokesman said.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE