SNIPPETS

45 seats for B’desh women

DHAKA: The Bangladeshi parliament amended the constitution on Sunday to reserve 45 seats for women, despite protests from the opposition and rights groups which see the move as a power grab. The amendment created 45 seats in parliament in addition to the existing 300. The new MPs will be selected in proportion to each party’s showing in the last election. — AFP

Quake jolts Taiwan

TAIPEI: A strong earthquake shook eastern Taiwan on Sunday, the Central Weather Bureau said, but no damage or injuries were immediately reported. The 6-magnitude quake was centered off the island’s eastern coast, under the ocean about 64 km east of Taitung, the weather bureau said. — AP

Armed men kill two cops

KABUL: Armed men attacked a group of Afghan policemen patrolling the capital Kabul, killing two of them, police said on Sunday. Deputy police chief Amin Khalil Zada said the attackers who struck late on Saturday in the west of the city were thieves but gave no details about what they had stolen. — AP

Kabul killing probe

KABUL: Two foreigners found beaten and stabbed to death in a Kabul park, believed to be Swiss and Norwegian citizens, were involved in gem smuggling, a senior police official said on Sunday. Mystery has surrounded the brutal killings of the two men, whose ages and names have not been disclosed, since their bodies were discovered last week in a west Kabul garden which was closed to the public. — AFP

Bridge collapse kills seven

PHNOM PENH: A concrete bridge collapsed in Cambodia, killing seven workers riding in an overloaded truck, a police official said on Sunday. Another seven labourers in the vehicle were seriously injured when a section of the bridge broke, sending the truck plunging to the rock-filled bottom of a small river 15 meters below, said Chuong Seang Hak, a provincial deputy police chief. — AP

9 nabbed after train heist

JAKARTA: Police said on Sunday they have arrested nine people suspected of robbing valuables and cash from a carriage-load of train passengers in what officials said was the largest heist ever carried out in Indonesia. The thieves threw one passenger off the train for resisting the robbery on Thursday. He was taken to a hospital and treated for minor injuries. It’s the most number of passengers robbed in one single incident. — AP

Chinese painter dead

HONG KONG: Renowned traditional Chinese artist Yang Shen-sum, a master of the Lingnan school of painting, died in Hong Kong at age 92, police said on Sunday. Yang, who is based in Canada, was found unconscious in bed by his wife early on Saturday morning and was certified dead upon arrival at Queen Mary Hospital, police said. Yang was born in 1913 in China and moved to Hong Kong in 1930. — AP

Falun Gong follower jailed

HONG KONG: A court in southern China has sentenced a Hong Kong follower of Falun Gong to three years in prison for distributing leaflets about the persecution of the group on the Chinese mainland, a spokeswoman for the group said on Sunday. Fu Xueying, who is in her late 20s, was sentenced April 30 by secret trial in the Chinese border city of Shenzhen, where she was caught handing out information about China’s crackdown on Falun Gong. — AP

US soldier killed

KABUL: Suspected insurgents attacked a coalition combat patrol in southern Afghanistan, killing one US soldier and wounding two others, the US military said on Sunday. One “anti-coalition” fighter was detained after the attack on Saturday near Girishk, in Helmand province, said military spokeswoman Lt Col Michele DeWerth. The two injured US soldiers returned to duty after medical treatment, she said. DeWerth did not identify any of the soldiers. — AP