‘Evil’ bomb plots

YANGON: Myanmar’s police have arrested 11 “terrorists” accused of “evil plots” to carry out bomb blasts aimed at jeopardising plans to hold national elections this year, state media said on Thursday. A home affairs ministry statement in the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said the suspects were arrested in the past week at their village in Mingaladon Township in northern Yangon. Police also seized handmade explosives, detonators, a pistol, rounds of ammunition and other “materials for conducting explosions,” the statement said. The group was accused of blasts in seven factories on the outskirts of Yangon in September last year, in which there were no casualties, and of attempting further bomb attacks on security forces in December and January.

Taiwan pilots killed

TAIPEI: Taiwan’s military confirmed on Thursday that two pilots were killed when their plane went down during a routine training mission. The military launched a massive search after the propeller-driven T-34 trainer went missing above the mountains of southern Taiwan shortly after taking off from the air force academy on Tuesday. “We have found the bodies of both pilots and we will continue investigating” the cause of the accident, said Yen Te-fa, a spokesman for the search mission. The air force has grounded all 40 trainers for safety checks after the incident.

Woman kills family

TAIPEI: A Taiwanese woman has been detained for allegedly killing her mother, husband and mother-in-law in a violent insurance scam, police said on Thursday. “She has confessed to pushing her mother down the stairs and poisoning her husband and mother-in-law to get insurance money and pay off gambling debts,” an officer in Nantou county in the centre of the island told AFP. Lin Yu-ru, 29, was suspected of wrongdoing after her three relatives died mysteriously within nine months of each other, according to Nantou county police. Suspicions were intensified by the fact that the deaths made her the sole beneficiary of about 20 million Taiwan dollars (625,000 US) in insurance claims, according to police.

Convoy ambushed

KARACHI: Gunmen in Karachi ambushed three vehicles carrying supplies for NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan on Thursday, injuring three people, police said. The trucks were heading west out of the city when attackers opened fire, the latest in a string of raids on vehicles ferrying supplies across Pakistan’s restive frontier region to foreign troops battling the Taliban in Afghanistan.