A round-up of today's other stories in brief.
France to publish airline blacklist
PARIS - France said yesterday it would publish its own blacklist of airlines and countries with poor air safety records next week, after a spate of crashes raised concerns passengers were being kept in the dark over air safety.
Transport Minister Dominique Perben, who indicated last week Paris supported a Europe-wide blacklist, told a news conference France's civil aviation body would on Monday publish on its website a series of dossiers on airlines' safety records.
International airline safety has become a sensitive political issue following three fatal crashes in less than two weeks in which some 350 people have died.- (Reuters)
UK hospital to put death rates online
LONDON - A leading British hospital became the first yesterday to publish all of its death rates online.
St George's Hospital in Tooting, southwest London, has made available death rates for every speciality, from childbirth to geriatrics. By logging in online at the www.stgeorges.nhs.uk website, the public can learn what proportion of the hospital's patients in any of more than 20 branches of medicine die. - (PA)
Russia blast kills one, injures three
MOSCOW - At least one person was killed and three were wounded, including the prime minister of a southern Russian region bordering Chechnya, yesterday after a powerful blast, a spokesman for the emergencies service said.
He said the blast destroyed Igushetian leader Ibrahim Malsagov's car as it was passing a market in the town of Nazran.
A security guard died later. - (Reuters)
UN inquiry into Haiti lynchings
PORT-AU-PRINCE - The UN mission in Haiti has launched an inquiry into the lynching of at least 20 people by vigilantes armed with machetes and by Haitian police last weekend, UN officials said on Wednesday.
During a soccer game on Saturday, funded by the US Agency for International Development and the interim Haitian government, hooded police and individuals with machetes attacked people they called "bandits", according to residents of the Martissant slum. - (Reuters)
Brazil mayor took bribe, says ex-aide
BRASILIA - A former aide to Brazil's finance minister Antonio Palocci told a congressional panel yesterday that Mr Palocci accepted bribes while a city mayor but said he had no proof to back up charges that could cost the highly regarded minister his job.
The allegation was the latest in a series over wrongdoing in the ruling Workers' Party that has caused Brazil's worst political crisis in more than a decade. - (Reuters)
Pope to visit Poland next year
WARSAW - Pope Benedict will visit Poland in 2006, making his first pilgrimage to the homeland of his predecessor, John Paul II, since becoming pope, a Polish bishop said yesterday.