A round-up of some of today's other world news in brief....
Burning of stunt cars halts filming
PARIS- It was billed as the big-budget film that would bring hope and much-needed prosperity to one of Paris's most notoriously troubled suburbs. But shooting of Luc Besson's
From Paris With Love,starring John Travolta, has been cancelled after 10 stunt cars were set alight during a night-time rampage.
Several scenes of the €38.5m movie were due to be filmed in Les Bosquets de Montfermeil, a restive public housing estate in the northeast of the capital, which was one of the first areas to explode into violence during the riots of 2005.
Following Sunday's arson attacks, however, Besson announced the project had been called off - possibly for good. "We are deeply disappointed," said mayor Xavier Lemoine. Besson's production company, EuropaCorp, had decided the risks to the crew and high- profile cast were too high, he said. - ( Guardianservice)
Theft alleged
LONDON- Two house- keepers working at the English mansion belonging to David Beckham and his wife Victoria have been arrested on suspicion of stealing memorabilia belonging to the soccer star, it was reported yesterday.
Newspapers said possessions belonging to the player and his wife, including football boots, sportswear and designer clothes, were allegedly taken from their home, in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, and then put up for sale on Internet auction site eBay. - ( Reuters)
Kundera rejects spying claim
BERLIN- Celebrated author Milan Kundera has broken a 25-year silence to reject a claim that he denounced a western spy to the Czechoslovak communist secret police in 1950,
writes Derek Scally in Berlin.
On Monday, the Czech magazine Respekt published a police document from 1950 it said showed he had informed to police on Miroslav Dvoracek. He returned to Prague in 1950 after being recruited by US-based Czechoslovak intelligence as a refugee in post-war Bavaria.
Mr Dvoracek was arrested by police, sentenced to 22 years in prison and released after 14 years hard labour, including several years working in a uranium mine.
"I'm completely taken aback by something that I did not expect, something that I did not know about until now, and something that did not happen," Mr Kundera told the Czech News Agency by telephone from Paris where he has lived since 1975. "I absolutely did not know that person [Miroslav Dvoracek]," he said yesterday, describing the article as "an assassination attempt".
The Czech custodians of secret police files said yesterday they had no reason to doubt the authenticity of their document.
Mr Dvoracek, living in Sweden and reportedly suffering from ill health, declined to comment on the allegation.
His wife, Marketa Dvoracek Novak, told the AFP agency: "We're not surprised that Kundera's name has surfaced in Czech media reports as the informant. Kundera is a good writer but I am under no illusions about him as a human being."
After spending his student years as an enthusiastic communist, Kundera joined the reformist movement in the 1960s before rejecting the regime after the Prague Spring events, featured in his best-known work, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.