Hundreds of flood victims in eastern India have taken refuge in the treetops as monsoon rains swamp homes and spread misery among millions. Swelling rivers continued to break through mud embankments over the weekend, killing at least 50 people in the past 10 days and affecting more than three million. Air force helicopters dropped food packets into the trees in the eastern state of Orissa, while officials hunted three alligators and a crocodile which swam out of the state zoo on the rising waters.

 

 

TOKYO, Japan

 

Japanese police are seeking murder charges against a man over a stabbing frenzy in Tokyo that left seven people dead, increasing the likelihood he could face the death penalty. It is ultimately up to prosecutors whether to charge the disgruntled 25-year-old auto worker Tomohiro Kato, who remains in custody after being arrested at the scene of the June 8 massacre. Kato rammed a rented two-tonne truck into a crowd of pedestrians and slashed shoppers at random with a dagger in the high-tech and alternative culture district of Akihabara. He was originally arrested on charges of attempted murder resulting in death, but investigators now say they have proof of his "intention to kill."

A Cambodian teenager is recovering in hospital after a puffer fish attacked him in the groin area. The unnamed 13-year-old, with heavy strapping around his testicles, said he was lucky to be alive. The boy’s father said the fish had become enraged when it was accidentally trapped in the boy’s net and, when it was freed, attacked his son’s scrotum. Cambodian legend has it that the bite of the fish is even more dangerous than its poisonous spines, especially for boys.

 

Cambodian authorities working with Australian police have destroyed an enormous stockpile of 33 tons of safrole-rich oil, a key ingredient used in producing the synthetic drug Ecstasy. Members of the Australian Federal Police oversaw the burning of the oil in a remote village in Cambodia’s Pursat province, about 165 kilometres north-west of the capital, Phnom Penh. The oil, which is extracted from the roots of the sassafras tree, would have contributed to millions of hits of Ecstasy.