A roundup of today's other world news in brief:
Reporters arrested in Belarus
MINSK- Security police have raided Belarussian broadcasters' offices and arrested at least two reporters at their homes, journalists in the former Soviet republic have said.
The raids were launched yesterday, two days after police broke up a rally by opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko, accused by the West of trampling on human rights. Dozens of activists were fined or handed short jail terms.
- (Reuters)
Cancer suicide woman took pills
LYON- A French woman who had sought the legal right to commit suicide to end the suffering caused by an incurable and disfiguring cancer killed herself with sleeping tablets, according to authorities.
Chantal Sebire (52), whose face was distorted by a rare cancer of the sinus, was found dead in her home in eastern France last week, shortly after a court ruled that a doctor could not be allowed to help her die.
- (Reuters)
Man put his baby in microwave
AUSTIN- A father has been jailed for five years for putting his two-month-old daughter in a microwave. Ana Mauldin suffered severe burns but made a full recovery after her father Joshua left her in the oven for 20 seconds.
Mauldin had claimed he was insane when he put Ana in the microwave in a hotel room last year but the jury in Galveston, Texas found he had done it deliberately.
- (AP)
Gallery has Hitler painting
LONDON- The National Gallery has discovered that one of its paintings once belonged to Hitler. It believes Cupid Complaining To Venuswas once part of Hitler's private collection. The gallery is seeking further information about the painting, from about 1525, by Lucas Cranach the Elder.
- (PA)
Poll boost for Lula government
BRASILIA- Support for Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government jumped to its highest level as a strong economy boosted wages and jobs, a poll has shown.
In March, 58 per cent of Brazilians thought the Lula government was doing a good or excellent job, up from 51 per cent in December.
- (Reuters)
Italy warned on dioxin in cheese
ROME/BRUSSELS- Italy has told the European Commission it had not exported any mozzarella cheese contaminated with cancer-causing dioxin but has been ordered by Brussels to take more urgent action or risk a trade ban.
Checks have found higher- than-permitted levels of dioxin at nearly one in five producers of mozzarella made from buffalo milk.
- (Reuters)