A round-up of today's other stories in brief...
Dalai Lama envoys fly to Beijing
BEIJING- Envoys of the Dalai Lama have flown to Beijing for closed-door fence-mending talks, the Tibetan government-in-exile said yesterday, days after he expressed dismay at China's attitude about Tibet's future.
The talks, the eighth round since 2002 and the first after Beijing hosted the Olympics, come amid growing concern about the Dalai Lama's health and the diminishing possibility of a meaningful settlement. - ( Reuters)
Burma jails nine activists
RANGOON- Burma's junta sentenced nine leading democracy activists to six months in jail for interrupting a judge during a closed trial inside Rangoon's infamous Insein prison, their lawyer said yesterday.
The nine, who include Min Ko Naing, Burma's most high- profile political prisoner after Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, had argued that their cases should be heard in open court. - (Reuters)
Car bomb wounds 17 at university
MADRID- A car bomb exploded in a University of Navarra car park in northern Spain yesterday, slightly wounding 17 people, after a warning call in the name of Basque separatist rebels Eta, the government said.
Spanish interior minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba said a phone call an hour before the blast had warned of a car bomb left in a university. - ( Reuters)
Robber caught and hostage freed
VIENNA- Austrian police arrested an armed bank robber yesterday and freed an employee he took hostage after tracking the car in which the man had escaped with her. Police overpowered him at a petrol station 470km (290 miles) away from the robbery, where he stopped because his hostage needed to use the toilet. - ( Reuters)
10 arrested over killing of editor
ZAGREB- Croatia has arrested 10 people believed to be members of criminal gangs involved in killing a newspaper editor last week and asked for help from police in Serbia and Bosnia.
A police spokesman said three suspects had resisted arrest and had to be subdued by force during the inquiry into the killing of Nacional weekly editor Ivo Pukanic and his marketing chief in Zagreb on October 23rd. - ( Reuters)
Zambians vote for new president
LUSAKA- Zambians yesterday voted for a successor to their late president, Levy Mwanawasa, to lead one of southern Africa's most stable and relatively prosperous states.
An intelligence official said troops would be placed on high alert after polls closed to prevent unrest, although campaigning had been peaceful. - ( Reuters)
Phoenicians leave living legacy
WASHINGTON- The seafaring Phoenicians left the world more than a legacy of alphabets and purple dye, according to a report published yesterday. As many as one in 17 men living in the Mediterranean region carries a Y-chromosome handed down from a male Phoenician ancestor, the team at National Geographicand IBM reported in the American Journal of Human Genetics. - ( Reuters)
French charity MSF to quit Niger
NIAMEY- French charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) will leave Niger after failing to persuade the government to allow it to restart work in the Sahel country, it said yesterday.
Niger's health authorities have accused MSF of exaggerating the numbers of undernourished children in need of aid and of not working with the government. - ( Reuters)