A round-up of today's other stories in brief
MP quits over Blair school reform plans
LONDON - A British Labour MP last night quit the government in protest at controversial education plans.
Martin Salter resigned as parliamentary private secretary to education minister Jacqui Smith, saying the plans would put poor children at a disadvantage.
He said he could not be part of a government operation to promote a policy he had such reservations about.
In a statement the Reading West MP said: "I am worried that the proposals could lead to pupils from poorer areas being disadvantaged as popular schools expand, and wealthier and better-informed parents are able to set up their own schools." - (PA)
14 held in Belgian terror inquiry
BRUSSELS - Belgian authorities detained 14 suspects yesterday with links to a terrorist network that sent volunteers to Iraq, including a Belgian woman who allegedly carried out a suicide attack in Baghdad.
The dawn raids in Brussels and three other cities across the country involved more than 200 police officers and followed media reports that a Belgian woman had blown herself up in a November 9th attack in Baghdad. - (Reuters)
Rebels attack soldiers in Darfur
ABUJA - A splinter rebel group clashed with African Union monitors in Sudan's Darfur region, wounding five soldiers, as the two main rebel groups held peace talks with the Sudanese government in Nigeria yesterday.
It was the latest in a series of clashes involving the National Movement for Reform and Development, a breakaway group demanding a seat at the Abuja talks, where only the two principal rebel groups are represented. - (Reuters)
Women elected in Saudi Arabia
JEDDAH - Two women in Saudi Arabia - where females are largely barred from public and political life - have broken the gender barrier by winning elections to the board of Jeddah's chamber of commerce.
Lama al-Sulaiman and Nashwa Taher became the first women in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia to assume positions as a result of an election. - (Reuters)
Surgeons claim face transplant
LYONS - French surgeons have performed what they said yesterday was the world's first partial face transplant, giving a new nose, chin and lips to a woman savaged by a dog.
Specialists from two French hospitals carried out the operation on a 38-year-old woman on Sunday in the northern city of Amiens by grafting on tissues, muscles, arteries and veins from a brain-dead woman. - (Reuters)
Glitter may face rape charges
VUNG TAU, Vietnam - British rocker Gary Glitter, charged in Vietnam last week with child molestation, is now under investigation for raping children, Vietnamese police said yesterday.
Police last week charged Glitter (61), whose real name is Paul Gadd, with "engaging in perverse activities with children" and ordered him to remain in custody pending further investigation. - (Reuters)
Pinter to miss Nobel events
STOCKHOLM - Ill health has forced British playwright Harold Pinter to cancel all public appearances linked to his Nobel Prize for Literature, the Nobel Foundation said yesterday.
Pinter had already pulled out of the award ceremony and banquet, but had been due in Stockholm to give the traditional Nobel literature lecture. This was cancelled too.