17-yr jail for enslaving girl

Greenbelt: A Maryland woman was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for forcing a Cameroonian girl to work as a domestic servant for no pay, beginning when the girl was 11. Theresa Mubang, herself originally from Cameroon, was convicted by a federal jury in November of involuntary servitude and harboring an alien. Prosecutors said she forced the girl to cook, clean and take care of Mubang’s young children from November 1996 until November 1998. She also beat the girl, they alleged. — AP

Excrement hurled at MP

Bangkok: A newly elected member of Parliament from Thailand’s ruling party was hit by a bag of human excrement as he campaigned on Tuesday for one of his group’s candidates for Bangkok’s city council, police said. The lawmaker, Mana Kongwuthiphanya, was travelling in the back of a truck to thank voters for electing him. — AP

Seven found dead

TOKYO: Seven bodies have been found in two cars in northern Japan, in what police suspected on Tuesday were the country’s latest group suicides. Four people were found at a parking lot in Nikko on Monday, police. The three men and a woman were found along with a group suicide note inside the rented passenger car. Another car was found on Tuesday with bodies of two men and one woman in Ninomiya city. — AP

300 passengers evacuated

MANCHESTER: Over 300 passengers and crew were evacuated from a Pakistani flight after a fire was reported while the aircraft was refuelling at Manchester Airport, police said on Tuesday. Emergency services evacuated 340 passengers and 12 crew from the aircraft, which was making a stopover as Flight 789 from Toronto to Pakistan, Greater Manchester Police said. — AP

Man lies for morphine

Tehran: An Iranian man, Ahmad Habibzadeh, who claimed to have survived eight days under the rubble of his home after an earthquake last week made the story up so he could get some free morphine, officials said on Tuesday. — AFP