Today's other stories in brief
Tug goes to aid of stricken car carrier
LAND'S END - A coast- guard tug last night went to the aid of a stricken 55,000- tonne car carrier drifting off Land's End in gale force conditions. The tug Anglian Princess was preparing to tow the Figaro - carrying more than 2,500 vehicles - to the Cornish port of Falmouth. There were 30 people aboard the carrier, which was en route from Santander in northern Spain to Bristol, but no one has been injured. - (PA)
Temperatures in Britain up by 1°C
LONDON - Land and sea temperatures around Britain have risen sharply under the influence of climate change and more is on the way, a government report said yesterday.
The Central England land temperature has risen by 1°Celsius since the 1970s.
Over the same period the temperature of the seas around the country has risen by 0.7°, the department of the environment report said. - (Reuters)
Muslims criticise Merkel's remarks
BERLIN - A German Muslim group criticised Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday for suggesting that mosque minarets should not be higher than church steeples, saying it hoped this topic would not be used as a campaign issue.
Dr Merkel told a congress of her conservative Christian Democrats that "we must take care that mosque cupolas are not built demonstratively higher than church steeples".
Mosque-building is a sensitive subject in Germany. Dr Merkel's fellow conservatives in Bavaria have been saying for months that minarets should not dwarf steeples. Local residents are up in arms about plans to build mosques in Berlin, Munich and Cologne. - (Reuters)
Michelangelo drawing found
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican said yesterday it had discovered a lost drawing by Renaissance master Michelangelo of a design for the dome of St Peter's Basilica.
The Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romanosaid the small drawing, done in the spring of 1563 when Michelangelo was 88, was believed to be his last known sketch before he died the next year.
The drawing, a section of the dome, contains some measurements and is thus believed to have been done to give stone cutters guidance after the master deemed work on an earlier batch of stone inadequate.
- (Reuters)
Sutherland to begin prison term
LOS ANGELES - Kiefer Sutherland, star of the hit television series 24, was formally sentenced on Wednesday to 48 days in jail for drunken driving, and his lawyer said the actor would begin doing time immediately. Sutherland will serve the 48 days consecutively rather than in two separate stints as had been previously planned in order to prevent a conflict with the production schedule of the Fox network show. - (Reuters)