BEIJING, China

Authorities in China have ordered an all-out search for a missing nuclear scale that contained a dangerous radioactive component, state press said. The scale, used to make precision measurements, was discovered missing after workers began dismantling a cement factory in Tongchuan city in northwest Shaanxi province, where it was used, the Beijing Times said.

BANGKOK, Thailand

The body of a British national who was murdered on his yacht was found floating in Thai waters offshore of Satun province, media reports said. A Thai search team found the body of Malcolm Robertson, 64, about 10 kilometres off Ravi Island in the Andaman Sea, about 800 kilometres south of Bangkok, The Nation online service reported. Robertson was killed while holidaying with his wife. His body was thrown overboard. Three Myanmar nationals have confessed to slitting Robertson's throat after he caught them attempting to steal an inflatable dinghy.

DHAKA, Bangladesh

British Airways has ended its direct flights between the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka and London because the 34-year-old route was no longer profitable, the carrier said. The airline suspended the three-times-a-week service as it had not made “a profitable contribution to our business for some time.” The first Dhaka to London service was in January 1975. Airlines in South Asia have been hit hard by the global economic downturn.

Three Hong Kong teenagers have been arrested for possessing explosives of the type used in the 2005 suicide attacks in London, police said. The three were arrested after one of them almost had his hand blown off when he set off a homemade bomb in his family's store. Police found the injured 13-year-old caused the explosion by igniting a tissue fuse attached to two plastic bottles containing triacetone triperoxide.

HANOI, Vietnam

A mother narrowly rescued her one-year-old son from an attack by a crocodile that had escaped from a nearby farm. The woman was holding her son over a canal to relieve himself on Sunday when the 100-kilogram crocodile leapt out of the water and snapped at the child's foot. The mother managed to pull her son back and outrun the crocodile that pursued her onto land.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia

Muslims who smoke and try to portray themselves as pious are worse than cows which defecate in the street, a top Malaysian Muslim cleric and politician said. “Human beings, who have brains, for them to do something which is wrong in religion ... when they are in an attire which symbolizes Islam, they can be regarded as being more despicable than cows,” said Nik Aziz who is the spiritual leader of the country's Pan-Islamic Party. Aziz said smoking was forbidden by Islam.

A China-based cyber spy network has hacked into government and private systems in 103 countries, including those of many Indian embassies and the Dalai Lama, a Canadian Internet research group said. The Information Warfare Monitor (IWM), which carried out extensive research on cyber spy activities emanating from China, said all evidence points to China as the source of this spy espionage.