A round up of today's other stories in brief...
Man charged with bombing of 'USS Cole'
WASHINGTON - US military prosecutors have charged the alleged mastermind behind the bombing of the USS Cole warship that killed 17 US sailors in 2000, the Pentagon said yesterday.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian national of Yemeni descent being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, faces eight charges including murder and terrorism for the attack in the Yemeni port of Aden on October 12th, 2000, which wounded 47 sailors. - ( Reuters)
Trafficking ring broken, police say
SOFIA - Bulgarian police said yesterday they had broken an international sex-trafficking ring and arrested a Greek man believed to have run the operation.
The women from Moldova, Ukraine and Uzbekistan were sent as sex workers to Greece via neighbouring Bulgaria using fake Bulgarian identity documents, police said in a statement.
Police said they had charged the Greek man with trafficking. - ( Reuters)
Archbishop warns rebel Anglicans
LONDON - The Archbishop of Canterbury last night directly challenged the rebel Anglicans who have launched a breakaway faction within the global communion. In unusually forthright language, he accused them of lacking legitimacy, authority and, by implication, integrity.
Breaking his silence over the conservative threat to the unity of the 77 million-strong communion, Rowan Williams warned the leaders of the conservative coalition that demolishing existing structures was not the answer to their concerns. - ( Guardian service)
No prosecution over Koran film
NETHERLANDS - Right-wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders is not to be prosecuted over his film denouncing the Koran, it was announced yesterday.
Public prosecutors said the film and statements Wilders wrote in Dutch newspapers were hurtful and insulting but were not criminal. - ( AP)
New head of UN peacekeepers
UNITED NATIONS - Alain Le Roy, a French diplomat with extensive experience in the Balkans, was named yesterday as new head of the UN peacekeeping department, one of the most high-profile jobs in the world body.
Le Roy (55) will replace Jean-Marie Guéhenno, also of France, who announced in March that he would step down. - ( Reuters)
Mediators seek Farc talks
BOGOTA - Two European mediators are seeking contacts with Colombian Farc guerrilla commanders over possible talks to release hostages held for years in jungle camps, a government source said yesterday.
A French and a Swiss negotiator are in the area where the Farc's top commander is believed to be as part of European efforts to broker a deal to free kidnap victims, who include French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans. - ( Reuters)
Pupil gets marks for expletive
LONDON - A British student who scribbled an expletive on an English language exam paper was awarded 7.5 per cent for accurate spelling and effective communication, The Times newspaper reported yesterday.
The pupil, who wrote "f--k off" after being asked in an English exam to "describe the room you are sitting in", got two marks out of 27 and would have got more if he had added some punctuation, chief examiner Peter Buckroyd told The Times. - ( Reuters)