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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Indonesians protest price increases

Compiled from wire reports The Spokesman-Review

Jakarta, Indonesia Dramatic fuel price hikes took effect Saturday as Indonesia sought to revive its beleaguered economy, sparking transport strikes that left thousands stranded and protests from people who have long enjoyed some of the cheapest gasoline in the world.

Demonstrators burned tires and effigies of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, while others commandeered diesel trucks and blocked roads.

The government, reacting to soaring global oil prices, announced just after midnight Saturday that the prices of gasoline would rise 87 percent to $1.67 a gallon, diesel fuel would more than double and kerosene would triple.

The increases will push up the price of everything from rice to cigarettes in the sprawling archipelago of 220 million people, half of whom live on less than $2 a day.

The sizes of the increases, much larger that expected, caught many by surprise

Neighbors thwart possible bombing try

Beirut, Lebanon A possible attempt to assassinate a Lebanese judge was foiled Saturday after neighbors alerted him to suspicious activity around his car and police found batteries and wires beneath the vehicle, security officials said.

No trace of explosives was found near the car of Judge Nazem Khoury, who is overseeing the investigation into the financial scandals of Lebanon’s Al-Madina Bank and ordered its closure.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give official statements, said Khoury had recently received threats from unknown sources.

The security officials said Khoury’s neighbors in the town of Sahel Alma, north of Beirut, noticed suspicious activity around his car at 2 a.m. Saturday and alerted the judge. When Khoury checked from his balcony, he saw a man jump away and leave on a motorcycle with another man.

Police found batteries with wires attached under the car, in addition to cut wires under the steering wheel. Experts and police dogs found no trace of explosives and it was not clear if it was an attempt to assassinate Khoury or sabotage his car.

Two Colombian youths killed by hand grenade

Bogota, Colombia Two young boys playing with a hand grenade they found in a field in rural Colombia were killed when it exploded, police said Saturday.

The two Nasa Indian children, ages 5 and 9, died immediately from the blast Friday night in the Andean mountains near the town of Toribio, 250 miles southwest of the capital, Bogota, said Col. Luis de Jesus Celi, police commander of Cauca state.

“These boys were just starting their life,” said Alba Nuri Ipia, the mother of one of them, crying as she spoke to Caracol television.

The hand grenade was most likely left by Colombia’s main rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Celi said.

Japan privatizes highway corporations

Tokyo Japan on Saturday privatized four debt-ridden public corporations that run the nation’s highways, in the latest of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s initiatives to reduce the size of government.

The four corporations, with combined debts of nearly $352 billion, were restructured into six private companies under a set of laws enacted last year.

The highway corporations benefited for years from government policies that saw large-scale public spending as a way of powering Japan’s economy.

A political patronage system in which influential lawmakers consolidated power by doling out major construction contracts to key constituents has been central to Koizumi’s Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan for most of the past half-century.

Koizumi vowed to end pork-barrel politics and streamline the organizations amid criticisms that they were wasting taxpayer money on unneeded roads and financial mismanagement.