Briefly

INDIA

Top rebel leader in Kashmir held

SRINAGAR — Police in Indian Kashmir arrested a top rebel leader yesterday, dealing a blow to the region’s main militant group, a senior officer said.

Junaid ul-Islam, chief spokesman of the Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen militant group, was arrested during a raid in a house in Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, police said.

Soldiers in the troubled region killed two senior members of the group in a gunbattle two days before the arrest.

CAMBODIA

Marriages to foreigners halted

PHNOM PENH — The Cambodian government has stopped processing documents for marriages of its citizens with foreigners as a step to minimize human trafficking, officials said yesterday.

The suspension was prompted by concerns about exploitation and trafficking after a surge in the number of Cambodian women marrying South Korean men.

The South Korean connection made headlines last month after a report by the Geneva-based International Organization of Migration said that over the past four years, about 2,500 Cambodian women had married South Korean men, mostly through the services of underground matchmaking businesses.

It said each man would pay up to $20,000 to marry a woman but that a bride’s family would collect about $1,000 and the rest of the money would go to brokers.

BURMA

Armed men steal body of monk

RANGOON — A group of armed men on Wednesday stole the body of one of Burma’s most revered Buddhist monks, whose corpse has been preserved in a glass coffin since he died more than four years ago.

Officials said the coffin containing the body of Sayadaw Bhaddanta Vinaya, better known as Thamanya Sayadaw, was stolen from the monastery in eastern Burma where he had preached.

Thamanya Sayadaw, the abbot of Thamanya mountain, was a revered monk who attracted thousands of followers to his temple daily before he died in November 2003 at age 93.

Weekly notes …

A former communications minister in Bangladesh who is in prison on bribery charges was sentenced to a further 10 years yesterday after being found guilty of amassing more than $1 million illegally. Nazmul Huda also was found guilty of concealing wealth information, for which he was given a two-year prison term to run concurrently. His wife, Sigma Huda, who was a special U.N. rapporteur, was acquitted of the charges. … President Tommy Remengasau of the Pacific nation of Palau was briefly stranded in the Philippine capital Manila when Continental Airlines refused to allow him aboard a flight without being frisked. Adding a twist to the incident, the flight was targeted by a bomb threat called in to police and was forced to turn back. No bomb was found. The Philippines apologized for Wednesday night’s incident and paid for a private aircraft to take Mr. Remengasau, his wife and ministers to Palau’s capital, Koror, later yesterday.

From wire dispatches and staff reports