World Briefs

Spanish police yesterday announced the seizure of a record €25 million in cash and the arrest of 21 people in Spain and the United States involved in laundering money from drug trafficking.

“It is the largest single amount of cash seized in Europe coming from drug trafficking,” the head of the special police unit combating money-laundering, José Luis Olivera, told a news conference.

A total of 17 people were detained in and around Madrid and four in Miami, Florida in an operation staged in coordination with the FBI.

Photo shows a Lamborghini seized by the Spanish police during the haul. (AFP)

AC outfits

Japan is braced for a sweltering summer with little air conditioning due to post-earthquake measures to save electricity.

One clothing company has created special air conditioned outfits to help people through the hot working season. (AFP)

Magnus Malan dies

One of South Africa’s apartheid-era Defence Ministers has died, a family friend said yesterday.

Magnus Malan died yesterday morning in Cape Town at the age of 81, Gert Opperman said.

He served as Defence Minister from 1980 to 1991 and was considered responsible for many of the country’s military efforts against the anti-apartheid struggle.

In 2005, he was charged along with 19 others with the murders of 13 people under apartheid. He was later acquitted of murder and conspiracy.

Mr Opperman said Mr Malan was a soldier at heart. But he acknowledged that for many, Mr Malan personified the military successes of the apartheid regime, which ended with the 1994 election of the first black President, Nelson Mandela. (PA)

Case dismissed

Japanese rock musician Taiji Sawada, who faced charges of interfering with a flight crew, has died after being admitted to hospital in the Northern Mariana Islands, authorities said today. He was 45.

US Attorney Alicia AG Limtiaco said in a court filing requesting the dismissal of federal charges that Mr Sawada died yesterday.

Police Commissioner Ramon Mafnas said Sawada had been taken to the intensive care unit of the US Commonwealth Health Centre in Saipanon on Thursday night but declined to provide other details, according to a report by the Saipan Tribune. (PA)

Double eruption

A volatile volcano in central Indonesia has erupted again, spewing ash almost 600 metres into the air.

Monitoring official Farid Ruskanda said Mount Lokon on Sulawesi island erupted twice within half an hour yesterday.

Mount Lokon has been dormant for years but rumbled back to life late last week. Yester­day, it unleashed its most powerful eruption yet, spitting hot ash as high as 3,474 metres. Some 5,000 people near the mountain have been relocated to safer areas. (PA)

Baby mix-up

Staff at an Australian hospital accidentally mixed up two newborns and gave them to the wrong mothers, who breast-fed the infants before the mistake was caught, the hospital said yesterday.

A family member of one of the mothers noticed something was wrong and alerted staff after the mothers had been with the wrong infants for more than eight hours on Friday, said Stephen Roberts, chief executive officer of St John of God Hospital, which is in the city of Geelong in south eastern Victoria state.

“It should be obviously a great time in any young family’s life, and for us to have contributed to this situation, it disturbs us that it’s happened,” Mr Roberts told Australian radio station 3AW. (PA)

Zoo owner attacked

The owner of a small US zoo has been taken to hospital with injuries from a tiger attack.

The Delaware County sheriff’s office in Iowa said 52-year-old Tom Sellner suffered lacerations to his head and torso in the attack at Cricket Hollow Zoo in Manchester. He was flown to an Iowa City hospital.

Mr Sellner was attacked while feeding an adult tiger. The tiger was not put down after the attack.

The zoo’s website says it has more than 300 birds and animals, including tigers, African lions and other exotic cats. (PA)