A round-up of today's other stories in brief...
Two Baghdad bombs kill 22, injure 38
BAGHDAD - Eighteen civilians were killed and 29 wounded in an explosion in Baghdad, the US military said yesterday. Iraqi police said the blast was caused by a truck bomb targeting the home of a senior police officer in the Shaab district, but the US military blamed it on a misfiring militia rocket.
Also in Baghdad yesterday, four civilians were killed and nine people, including three policemen, were wounded when a parked car bomb targeting a police patrol exploded near a restaurant in the Jadriya neighbourhood of southern Baghdad, according to police. - (Reuters)
Water leak shuts nuclear plant
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's only nuclear power plant was shut down yesterday because of a water leak but there has been no impact on the environment, Slovenian officials said.
"The plant was shut down and the leakage was located already. Now the plant will have to cool down for a day or so before the leakage can be repaired," said Andrej Stritar, head of the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration.
"However, there is no impact on the environment, the matter is under control."
The Krsko nuclear plant, which is jointly owned by Slovenia and its neighbour Croatia, is located in southwestern Slovenia, close to the border with Croatia. - (Reuters)
27 injured in rail track bombing
COLOMBO - Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels blew up a rail track near the Sri Lankan capital yesterday, wounding at least 27 people, the military said, the second attack on the rail network in just over a week.
The bomb, planted along a portion of the tracks in Wellawatta, a suburb of Colombo, went off just as a train packed with commuters passed through. Two train carriages were slightly damaged. The latest attack came just over a week after eight people were killed and 73 wounded when a bomb exploded on a train during rush hour in Colombo. - (Reuters)
Israel delays tax fund transfers
JERUSALEM - Israel has delayed transferring tax funds to the Palestinian government after prime minister Salam Fayyad angered Israeli leaders by lobbying the EU not to upgrade its ties with the Jewish state.
Israel told Fayyad's government the delay in transferring the tax revenues to pay Palestinian Authority salaries was due to technical problems, Palestinian officials said.
But Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that withholding the money, at least temporarily, was linked to the EU dispute. - (Reuters)
Irishman buys Dickens' desk
LONDON - The desk where Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations and his final correspondence hours before his death fetched £433,250 (€550,820) at auction yesterday, about seven times its pre-sale estimate.
The Irish entrepreneur who bought the desk said it was a bargain. "It's a part of Charles Dickens, so I'm delighted to be its owner," Tom Higgins said after the sale. - (Reuters)