A round-up of today’s other stories in brief
Anti-gay paper ordered to shut
KAMPALA – A Ugandan newspaper that published names and pictures of what it said were homosexuals in Uganda and called on authorities to hang them has been ordered to cease publishing, a gay rights leader said yesterday.
Frank Mugisha, chairman of the Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMU), said his group had petitioned the high court to order Rolling Stone to stop work because it was exposing innocent people to discrimination, ridicule, intimidation and possible violence. “I feel enormous relief and happiness because we have received justice at long last. Rolling Stone won’t be on the streets anymore,” Mr Mugisha said.
Uganda’s penal code outlaws homosexuality, which it broadly describes as having sex against the order of nature. – (Reuters)
MP stabbed ‘in revenge’ over Iraq
LONDON – A former British Labour minister was stabbed twice in his stomach by a woman who wanted to kill him as “revenge” for his voting for the Iraq war, a court heard yesterday.
Roshonara Choudhry (21) “smiled” just before she plunged the knife into Stephen Timms MP, in an attempted killing for political reasons. The jury at the Old Bailey in London was told she was not mentally ill and was calm after the attack.
Ms Choudhry had gone to Mr Timms’s east London constituency surgery on May 14th, 2010, intent on stabbing him to death, the court heard. Weeks before, she had bought two new knives, one to stab him with, the other as back-up in case the first one broke. The MP was stabbed twice in the abdomen. He has since made a full recovery. – (Guardian service)
‘Comforter’ of Diana exposed as a thief
LONDON – A man who claimed he held the hand of Diana, Princess of Wales, and tried to comfort her as she lay dying was exposed yesterday as a career criminal. Abdelatif Redjil told the inquest into her death in a car crash that he was with her as she uttered her final words in the back of her Mercedes in a Paris tunnel. However his evidence was thrown into doubt yesterday by reports across the French media that Redjil was prosecuted for handling three stolen works by Picasso valued at €50 million. Known as “the locksmith” for his ability to open locks without leaving any traces, Redjil was jailed in the French capital on Friday, reported Le Figaro. – (PA)
Meltwater from Icelandic glacial lake may signal volcano activity
REYKJAVIK – Meltwater is flooding from the Grimsvotn glacial lake in Iceland and could signal the volcano underneath is about to erupt, a spokeswoman at the Icelandic Civil Protection Department said yesterday.
In April, clouds of ash from an eruption under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier grounded flights across Europe for a week, causing billions of dollars in losses for airlines and other industries.
Water now pouring from Iceland’s biggest glacier, Vatnajokull, which sits on top of a number of volcanic hotspots, could be a sign of fresh geological activity, Civil Protection Department spokeswoman Gudrun Johannesdottir said.
Eyjafjallajokull is about 100km (62 miles) southeast of Vatnajokull. “We have to check if there will be an eruption,” Ms Johannesdottir said. “Sometimes it initiates an eruption when a glacial outburst flood starts, but not every time. So we are monitoring the situation closely.”
The last eruption at Grimsvotn, in 2004, caused short-term disruptions to airline traffic into Iceland. – (Reuters)