A round-up of today's other stories in brief.
Sex predator who used internet jailed
LONDON - A British court jailed a man yesterday who wrested control of the computers of girls as young as 13 in order to blackmail them for his sexual gratification.
The Inner London Crown Court sentenced Adrian Ringland (36), from the northern English town of Ilkeston, to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to blackmail, indecency with a child and grooming, a term used to describe methods which paedophiles use to befriend their victims.
Ringland would pretend to be a teenage boy in Internet chat rooms in order to lure young girls into conversation, said Jenny Hopkins of the Crown Prosecution Service.
After that he would raid their computers for embarrassing material that he could use in order to blackmail them into posing for indecent photos. - (Reuters)
Johnson will not challenge Brown
LONDON - Education secretary Alan Johnson will not contest the Labour leadership but will join the race to be deputy leader, he said yesterday.
Mr Johnson, strongly tipped at one stage to mount a challenge to firm favourite Gordon Brown, told the BBC he would not do so. - (PA)
Case over child soldiers heard
THE HAGUE - Representatives of former child soldiers and prosecutors presented evidence yesterday for the first time in the International Criminal Court's case against Congolese militiaman Thomas Lubanga.
Prosecution lawyer Ekkehard Withopf said Lubanga, the founder and leader of one of the most dangerous militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ituri district, trained children to kill, made them kill and let them be killed. - (Reuters)
Jerusalem cancels gay pride parade
JERUSALEM - Organisers yesterday cancelled a gay pride parade in Jerusalem that ultra-Orthodox Jews had threatened to disrupt, after police said they needed to divert forces to guard against threatened Palestinian attacks.
Instead of today's scheduled march through the streets of the holy city, organisers said they would hold an event in a Jerusalem stadium. - (Reuters)
Veteran newsman Ed Bradley dies
LOS ANGELES - Veteran CBS newsman Ed Bradley, a pioneering black American journalist who won acclaim as a Vietnam War correspondent and later as a reporter for 60 Minutes, has died of complications from leukaemia. He was 65. - (Reuters)