Today's other stories in brief
Man gets life for plotting to behead soldier
LONDON - A fanatic who planned an Iraq-style kidnap and beheading of a British soldier plucked from a Birmingham street, was jailed for life yesterday.
Parviz Khan (37) pleaded guilty to the plan, that was disrupted in January last year and which UK counter-terrorism officials believe was backed by al-Qaeda. The aim was to convulse Britain's armed forces with fear and show the terror group could still strike at the heart of Britain. - (Guardian service)
Riot police raid homes in Paris
PARIS - More than 1,000 French riot police and special forces raided housing estates in a troubled Paris suburb at dawn yesterday, kicking open doors and arresting 33 people in a search for the suspected ringleaders of violent riots last year.
President Nicolas Sarkozy's political opponents called the operation an excessive "security spectacle" after pictures of armoured police trucks and "RoboCop" riot police were broadcast by television reporters tipped off in advance. Left-wingers accused Mr Sarkozy of trying to bolster his UMP party ahead of local elections next month. - (Guardian service)
Churches leader set to depart
GENEVA - The World Council of Churches (WCC), the major international Christian grouping, yesterday looked likely to part company with its current chief, Samuel Kobia of Kenya, after only one five-year term in the post.
A delegate to the WCC's policy-setting central committee said that Rev Kobia, a Methodist minister whose US doctorate was revealed to have been issued by an unaccredited institution, told the gathering he would not stand for a second term as general secretary. - (Reuters)
Judge to rule on McCartney divorce
LONDON - A multimillion pound divorce settlement between Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills will be imposed on the couple by a judge, after their High Court hearing closed yesterday without agreement.
Two years after they split, and having spent six days in court and millions of pounds in legal fees, McCartney and Mills have been unable to square their differences and will now be bound by Mr Justice Bennet's ruling, expected in several weeks.
- (Guardian service)
French literary cult figure dies
PARIS - Writer and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet, an "enfant terrible" of France's literary establishment who helped found the New Novel school in the 1950s, died yesterday aged 85, his publishers said.
Robbe-Grillet became a cult figure among France's postwar intelligentsia with a genre of novel-writing that rejected conventions such as plot, characterisation and emotion. - (Reuters)
'Devil frog' found in Madagascar
WASHINGTON - Scientists yesterday announced the discovery in northwestern Madagascar of a bulky amphibian dubbed the "devil frog" that lived 65 million to 70 million years ago and was so nasty it may have eaten newborn dinosaurs.
It was larger than any frog living today and may be the biggest ever to have existed, according to palaeontologist David Krause of Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York, one of the scientists who found the remains. - (Reuters)
Mafia leader arrested in Italy
ROME - Italian police have arrested the leader of the powerful Calabrian Mafia, interior minister Giuliano Amato said yesterday.
Pasquale Condello (57) was captured in a house in Reggio Calabria in the southern tip of mainland Italy, police said. - (Reuters)