A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Robertson backs down on Chavez
WASHINGTON - US evangelist Pat Robertson, who called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, said yesterday he was misinterpreted and there were a number of ways to "take him out", including kidnapping.
"I said our special forces could take him out. Take him out could be a number of things including kidnapping," Mr Robertson said on his The 700 Club television programme.
"There are a number of ways of taking out a dictator from power besides killing him," he added. "I was misinterpreted." President Chavez defeated a referendum proposal to remove him from office in 2004 by 59 per cent to 41 per cent. - (Reuters)
US warns on Iran nuclear project
WASHINGTON - The United States remains concerned about Iran's nuclear programme despite reported findings by scientists that bomb-grade uranium traces found in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment, the State Department has said.
Spokesman Seán McCormack said the contamination issue was "one part of this overall set of questions that not just the United States has, but the rest of the world has about Iran's nuclear programme". - (Reuters)
New heart study clears Viagra
NEW YORK - Men who take Viagra to overcome erectile difficulties do not increase their short-term risk of having a heart attack, a review of clinical trials indicates.
The finding is "consistent with the growing body of evidence" demonstrating the cardiovascular safety of Viagra (known generically as sildenafil), Dr Murray A Mittleman, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues note in the American Journal of Cardiology. - (Reuters)
Palestinian man stabs Jew to death
JERUSALEM - A Palestinian man stabbed to death an ultra-Orthodox Jew with a large kitchen knife in Jerusalem's walled Old City, police and a hospital spokeswoman said yesterday. A police spokesman said earlier the stabbing, in which a second ultra-Orthodox Jew was moderately wounded, had a nationalist background and police were pursuing the attacker. - (Reuters)
Pinochet wife, son face tax charges
SANTIAGO - Chile's Supreme Court has upheld tax evasion charges against the wife and youngest son of Augusto Pinochet, a victory for investigators seeking to eventually try the former dictator over $27 million held in secret accounts.
A Supreme Court panel yesterday upheld a lower court decision to allow complicity in tax evasion indictments against Pinochet's wife Lucia Hiriart and youngest son, Marco Antonio. - (Reuters)
'Mockingbird' star dies from cancer
LOS ANGELES - Brock Peters, the deep-voiced American actor who portrayed a black man wrongly accused of rape in the classic film To Kill a Mockingbird, has died at 78.
Peters died at his Los Angeles home on Tuesday after a battle with pancreatic cancer, the Los Angeles Times reported. - (Reuters)
Libel damages for Timberlake
LONDON - Singer Justin Timberlake yesterday accepted "substantial", undisclosed libel damages over allegations that he had a secret fling with a model behind the back of his girlfriend, Cameron Diaz.
His solicitor told the High Court in London that the allegations in the News of the World in July 2004 had damaged the performer's "personal and professional reputations".
Timberlake said he would donate the libel damages to charity. - (PA)