Guards in trouble after prisoner gets pregnant

HANOI • Four prison guards have been suspended for alleged negligence in Vietnam after an inmate on death row became pregnant.

Investigators said the inmate, Nguyen Thi Hue, 42, inseminated herself with the help of a male inmate, likely to escape the death penalty, reported the BBC.

Under Vietnamese law, a pregnant woman or a mother whose child is less than three years of age cannot be executed, and the sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment.

Bomb kills 3 in restive Philippine region

MANILA • Three civilians were killed in a roadside bomb blast in a remote Philippine region where the army and Muslim rebels have engaged in sporadic fighting for days, police said yesterday.

Insurgents booby-trapped a highway to target military convoys but the bomb went off when a van carrying six people passed by on Tuesday.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Maldives' opposition leader gets 12 years' jail

MALE • A Maldives court on Tuesday sentenced the leader of the Islamist opposition to 12 years in jail on terrorism charges related to a speech he made to protest against the imprisonment of the islands' first democratically elected president Mohamed Nasheed.

Sheikh Imran Abdulla, the leader of Islamist Adhaalath Party, made the remarks on May Day last year. The government said Imran was charged for urging protesters"to confront police", which the politician's lawyer denied.

REUTERS