A roundup of today's other world stories in brief:
Six missing after tugboat capsizes
LONDON- Eight crew members were rescued but six were unaccounted for after a tugboat capsized in the North Sea on yesterday, British coastguards said.
The Bourbon Dolphin, a Norwegian anchor-handling supply tug, capsized with 14 crew on board 75 miles north of Scotland's Shetland Islands, a coastguard spokeswoman said.
Three nearby vessels offered help, the coastguard scrambled a helicopter and a diving vessel was on its way to help in the rescue, the spokeswoman said.
- (Reuters)
Turkish general urges Iraq attack
ANKARA- Turkey's top general called yesterday for a military operation in northern Iraq to quash Turkish Kurdish rebels hiding there, annoying the United States and Iraqi Kurds.
But Gen Yasar Buyukanit, head of Turkey's powerful military general staff, added that the army had not at this stage asked parliament to authorise any such operation.
- (Reuters)
Romanian leader threatens to resign
BUCHAREST- Romania's president, Traian Basescu, said he may resign if parliament suspends him on charges of unconstitutional behaviour, a move that would trigger a snap election he is likely to win.
A parliament commission, backed by the left-wing opposition Social Democrats (PSD), has accused Mr Basescu, Romania's most popular politician, of fomenting instability in the new EU member-state, spying on politicians and pressuring the judiciary.
- (Reuters)
Moroccans on trial for terrorist attack
PARIS- French investigators have sent for trial eight suspected members of a Moroccan Islamist movement for their alleged role in the 2003 Casablanca attacks in which 45 people died, judicial sources said yesterday. The accused are charged with association with criminals engaged in a terrorist undertaking and face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
- (Reuters)
New deadline on climate change
OSLO- A possible world climate change summit in 2009 could act as a deadline for governments to agree a new treaty to fight global warming beyond 2012, the head of the UN climate change secretariat said yesterday.
Yvo de Boer welcomed remarks by UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon that he was considering a high-level meeting on climate change in September 2007 that might pave the way to a summit in 2008 or 2009.
- (Reuters)
British arrest MEP opposed to bases
CYPRUS- A Cypriot MEP opposed to the presence of British military bases on the island was again taken into British military custody yesteray.
Marios Matsakis was arrested during a visit to the Akrotiri base, one of two British military bases on the island. British authorities had issued a warrant for his arrest because he failed to make a bail payment related to an arrest last year for allegedly spray painting anti-British slogans on base property.
- (Reuters)
Spain's coastline issues highlighted
BRUSSELS- Rapid urban growth along Spain's Mediterranean coastline violates the property rights of local families, destroys their culture, and is illegal under European law, according to a European Parliament report.
New legislation in some coastal regions is forcing families to give up land without compensation and pay fees for roads and services that do not serve their communities, according to the report, approved by the assembly's petitions committee late on Wednesday.