Today's other stories in brief
Teenager jailed for life over murders
BRUSSELS - A Belgian teenager who targeted foreigners on a shooting rampage last year was jailed for life yesterday after he became the first person in Belgium to be convicted on a new charge of racially motivated murder.
Hans Van Themsche (19) was charged with killing a two-year-old white girl and her Malian nanny and attempting to kill a Turkish woman in Antwerp in May 2006 before a policeman shot him. - (Reuters)
'Columbine-like attack' planned
PHILADELPHIA - A 14-year-old boy armed with a rifle and home-made grenades was arrested late on Wednesday after confessing to plotting a "Columbine-like attack" on a suburban Philadelphia high school, police said yesterday.
The boy, who was not identified, told police he was a planning an attack on Plymouth Whitemarsh High School similar to the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado in which two students killed 13 people. - (Reuters)
Japanese man ran suicide website
TOKYO - Japanese police have arrested a man who ran a suicide website on suspicion of murdering a woman who had asked him to kill her, a police official said yesterday.
A rising number of suicide websites have cropped up in recent years in Japan, where the suicide rate is one of the highest among industrialised countries. - (Reuters)
Suspended terms for Dink colleagues
ISTANBUL - Two colleagues of murdered Armenian-Turkish editor Hrant Dink have received suspended jail sentences for "insulting Turkishness" under a controversial law limiting free speech, their newspaper said yesterday.
Arat Dink, editor of Agos and Hrant's son, and proprietor Sarkis Seropyan were each given one-year suspended sentences. - (Reuters)
Pilgrims killed in bus crash
LUCKNOW - A bus carrying pilgrims from a Hindu shrine in northern India swerved off a mountain road and plunged into a river yesterday, killing at least 40 people, an official said. The incident occurred when the driver lost control while negotiating a sharp bend and the vehicle fell into the Alakananda River high in the Himalayas. - (Reuters)
Jude Law cleared of assault
LONDON - British actor Jude Law has been cleared of assaulting a photographer in September, his spokeswoman said yesterday. Law was arrested in September on suspicion of attacking a photographer outside his London home. - (Reuters)
Car bomb kills seven, wounds 50
KIRKUK - A car bomb targeting the traffic police chief in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk killed at least seven people and wounded 50 others yesterday, police said. - (Reuters)
Juror discharged in police trial
A juror was discharged yesterday in the trial of the Metropolitan Police over the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. The Old Bailey case, now coming to the end of its second week, will now continue with a jury of 11. - (PA)