Radio bombs, mysterious stickers probed in Bangkok blasts

 A series of blasts last week in Thailand that set off accusations between Iran and Israel involved bombs disguised as radio sets, police said Wednesday. The devices used explosive materials that are not available in Thailand and were likely smuggled in, police said. Police are also looking at a series of stickers reading "SEJEAL," which were found found in busy areas of Bangkok. In all 18 have been collected so far from phone booths and street signs, authorities said. "Sejeal" is an Arabic word found in the Quran, referring to small pieces of stone. The Bangkok blasts did not kill anyone, and their intended targets are not clear, although authorities have said they were intended for Israeli diplomats. Suspect taken to Bangkok blast site Israeli diplomats targeted in Thailand Explosions...

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Guards flee again as Kerobokan jail violence flares

 Police and prison officials at Bali's troubled Kerobokan prison have once again abandoned their post in the face of a fresh outburst of rioting. Security forces responded with an hour or more of warning shots fired around the prison perimeter in an attempt to deter prisoners from starting a second night of full scale rioting. Two missiles made of rocks bound in flaming cloth were hurled over the prison walls at about 10pm local time Defiant prisoners look through the broken windows of Kerobokan. A barrage of rocks and other debris followed, forcing police stationed inside the prison in the wake of the previous  night's destructive riot to quit their posts. Witnesses to the violence say prisoners were yelling: "Everyone is a liar, give back our friends, where are our friends?"....

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The great Asian gold theft crisis

 Two small faces pull the curtain back in a side room and peer round to see who is at the door. After they run back inside, their mother, Mrs Rashid, unlocks the front door. Five weeks ago, she came home one evening to find the door ajar. The downstairs floor of her house was relatively untouched but upstairs the bedrooms had been ransacked – drawers opened, wardrobes emptied, clothes and belongings scattered everywhere. "It was such a huge shock," she says, sitting on the sofa, her voice breaking slightly. Her husband, Mr Rashid (neither want to give their full names), a big man sitting across the room, shakes his head. "They took it all," he says. The thieves who broke into this semi-detached house in Earley, near Reading, stole around £70,000-worth of gold jewellery. To those who...

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