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U.S. sailor convicted of deathin Japan

News from around the world.

By TIMES WIRES
Published June 3, 2006

TOKYO - A Japanese court on Friday convicted a U.S. sailor of killing a Japanese woman during a robbery near Tokyo and sentenced him to life in prison.

William Reese, 22, was convicted of robbing and fatally beating the 56-year-old woman near the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, southwest of Tokyo, on Jan. 3. Reese, from Pittsgrove, N.J., held the rank of seaman, according to the U.S. Navy.

The Yokohama District Court sentenced Reese to life in prison, according to court official Atsushi Yajima.

Reese pleaded guilty but said he had not intended to kill the woman, according to Kyodo News agency.

Judge Masazo Ogura said the killing shocked residents near the base and caused them anxiety, Kyodo reported.

The killing rekindled lingering concerns over crime related to the roughly 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan under a mutual security pact.

Indonesia needs $100M for quake relief, U.N. says

BANTUL, Indonesia - The United Nations said Friday that $100-million was urgently needed to help Indonesia earthquake survivors as the injured and bereaved marked the Islamic day of prayer amid the rubble of their homes.

The money will be needed in the next six months to address the most immediate needs, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. Nearly half of that money should go toward housing.

Adding to the concerns, nearby Mount Merapi volcano shot out large plumes of ash and sent lava down its slopes 35 times Friday.

The magnitude 6.3 earthquake that struck before dawn on May 27 killed more than 6,200 people and injured 30,000 more across a large part of Java Island. Officials estimate it destroyed 135,000 houses.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization denied reports that the most severely injured patients were dying at a rate of more than 400 per day in overcrowded hospitals.

"Reports of new deaths are absolutely incorrect," said Harsaran Pandey, WHO spokeswoman for Indonesia. "There are around 1,000 doctors and 1,000 nurses working for the quake. ... We've been speaking to all medical humanitarian groups and no one has that figure."

"Hospitals there are certainly overwhelmed, but as far as WHO is concerned, nothing like that is happening."

American kidnapped with seven others in Nigeria

ABUJA, Nigeria - Eight foreign workers, including one American, were kidnapped from a drilling rig off Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta Friday in the latest incident highlighting the tenuous security of oil operations in Africa's largest crude producer.

The kidnappers have offered to negotiate the release of the hostages - six Britons, the American and a Canadian - taken before dawn from the drilling rig Bulford Dolphin, according to Dolphin Drilling Ltd. of Aberdeen, Scotland, which operates the rig.

The company did not release names of the missing crewmen, information about demands or what group was behind the kidnapping.

But police spokesman Haz Iwendi said in the capital, Abuja, that no group had claimed responsibility and no demands had been made.

Militants in the Niger Delta region have blown up pipelines and kidnapped foreign workers in recent months to press their demands for a greater share of the country's oil wealth.

[Last modified June 3, 2006, 06:34:22]