A roundup of today's other world stories in brief:
Violence mars start to new year in France
PARIS -Vandals set fire to about 400 cars overnight and police said they arrested more than 250 people, as violence marred France's new year celebrations.
However, a police spokesman said there were fewer problems than in 2005, when youths attacked trains in the Paris region and southeast of the country.
Police said that by early yesterday they had arrested 258 people nationwide, including two children aged eight and 10.
- (Reuters)
Serbian PM in rare visit to Kosovo
MITROVICA -Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica paid a rare visit to the breakaway province of Kosovo on Sunday, spending New Year's Eve with Serbs in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica.
The visit, only his third since the United Nations took control of the majority Albanian territory in 1999, took place during campaigning for a general election in Serbia on January 21st. A UN decision on the Kosovo Albanians' demand for independence from Serbia is expected in the spring.
- (Reuters)
Press photographer kidnapped in Gaza
GAZA -Palestinian gunmen kidnapped a Peruvian photographer working for Agence France-Presse in Gaza yesterday, while several militants were seized in separate abductions that sparked new violence between rival factions.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction of the photographer, named by the French news agency and Palestinian security sources as Jaime Razuri.
- (Reuters)
German minister urges more reform
BERLIN- Economy Minister Michael Glos yesterday said that further German government reforms were urgently needed to boost economic growth and cut unemployment, effectively dismissing calls for a pause by a coalition partner.
"If we dither about now it will mean the success we've had so far will end up as just another flash in the pan," Mr Glos wrote in Handelsblattnewspaper.
- (Reuters)
Boxer stripped of MBE by queen
LONDON -Former world featherweight boxing champion "Prince" Naseem Hamed, who was jailed last year for dangerous driving, has been stripped of the MBE he received in 1998, according to the website of the London Gazette.
- (Reuters)
Air security breach at Bush ranch
WASHINGTON -A small airplane twice flew into restricted airspace above President Bush's Texas ranch on Sunday night in what the Secret Service decided was an inadvertent violation, a Secret Service spokeswoman said yesterday. The spokeswoman said the incident began about 11.30 pm on Sunday night.
- (Reuters)