TAIWAN ORDERS OFFICERS TO FACE LIE DETECTOR
TAIPEI: Taiwan is ordering dozens of military officers serving abroad to return home for lie detector tests to stem a wave of espionage cases shaking the island,

the defense minister said on Monday. More than 50 military attaches and other senior personnel assigned abroad have been called back one after the other since last year to do the polygraph test, Kao Hua-chu told parliament. The new measure, which was only made public on Monday, comes after a string of embarrassing cases, where Taiwanese officers were found to spy on behalf of arch enemy China.

S. KOREA’S FIRST LADY TO BE GRILLED IN LAND-DEAL PROBE
SEOUL: South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak’s wife is to be questioned as part of a probe into a presidential retirement home deal that has already grilled Lee’s brother and son, officials said on Monday. The inclusion of First Lady Kim Yoon-Ok in the investigation comes at a sensitive time, with South Korea just weeks away from a presidential election on December 19. The probe is focused on alleged irregularities in the purchase of a plot of land on the southern edge of Seoul to build a retirement home for President Lee when he formally leaves office in January. The lot was jointly purchased by the president’s son, Lee Si-Hyung, and the presidential security service which would need to house its agents on the site. But the cost was allegedly not split evenly, with suggestions that the security service paid too high a price for its share, while Lee’s son got a below-market rate for the residential plot.

JAPAN TAX AGENCY AUCTIONS OFF $2M DIAMONDS
TOKYO: Tax inspectors in Japan are selling off at least $2 million worth of diamonds on an Internet auction site after seizing them from people who had not paid their dues. The five jewels include one with a starting price of $507,000 that experts say is a flawless 7.5 carat rock more than half-an-inch in diameter. Gemologists graded the diamond D, meaning it is totally colorless. In a series of auctions starting on Friday, five jewels will go under the virtual hammer in week-long sales, with 25.6 million yen being the lowest starting price for any of the stones. A spokesman for the tax agency said that he could not reveal the name or names of the tax delinquents who had forfeited the diamonds.

TWO JAPANESE TOURISTS DIE IN GREAT WALL STORM
BEIJING: Two elderly Japanese tourists died and another was missing after being trapped in sudden heavy snowstorms during a visit to the Great Wall of China, Beijing said on Monday. Two women, aged 62 and 68, were confirmed dead, and a 76-year-old Japanese man remained missing on a snow-covered mountain near the wall in China’s northern Hebei province. Another Japanese tourist and a Chinese man who works for a Japanese tour agency were receiving medical treatment at a local clinic.

TRIAL BEGINS FOR POPE BUTLER ‘ACCOMPLICE’
VATICAN CITY: A Vatican computer technician accused of helping the pope’s former butler leak secret memos went on trial on Monday, in a case which could expose other whistleblowers within the Holy See. Claudio Sciarpelletti was being tried in the tiny state’s 19th-century courtroom in what is expected to be a lightning trial as the Vatican rushes to wind up the embarrassing and damaging months-long scandal. The 48-year-old is accused of aiding and abetting ex-butler Paolo Gabriele, who was sentenced to 18 months in jail last month after he admitted leaking papers alleging corruption and Machiavellian politics in the Vatican. The technician was arrested on May 25 as the investigation into the leaks unfolded but only spent one night in a Vatican cell before being released.