Other stories from around the world in brief
Four more oil workers taken in Nigeria
LAGOS - Two Norwegians and two Ukrainians were kidnapped at gunpoint from an oil services ship off the coast of Nigeria yesterday, the latest in a series of abductions in Africa's top oil producer, authorities said.
In a separate hostage crisis in another part of the oil-producing Niger Delta, militants issued a photograph of their German captive and a statement purportedly written by him in which he said he was being well treated but wanted to go home.
The wave of kidnappings coincides with an upsurge in militant attacks against the oil industry which has cut oil production by 25 per cent in the world's eighth largest exporter since February. - (Reuters)
Protesters block banks in Mexico
MEXICO CITY - Hundreds of Mexican leftists blocked the offices of three major foreign-owned banks yesterday in growing protests to force a full recount of a July presidential election they claim was rigged.
Supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador surrounded main offices in Mexico City of US-based Citigroup's Mexican unit Banamex, the Bancomer bank owned by Spain's BBVA and the British giant HSBC. They sat on the ground and vowed to block access for several hours. - (Reuters)
Nagasaki mayor criticises US
TOKYO - The mayor of Nagasaki criticised Iran and North Korea for their nuclear programmes and had harsh words for the United States for failing to halt nuclear proliferation as the Japanese city marked the 61st anniversary of its atomic bombing.
Elderly survivors, children and dignitaries bowed their heads at the city's Peace Park near "ground zero" for a moment of silence at 11.02am - the moment when a US bomber dropped the world's second atomic bomb on August 9th, 1945. - (Reuters)
Jailed Tibetan appeals to UN
BEIJING - A Tibetan history teacher, jailed apparently for espionage, has smuggled out of prison a letter appealing to UN committees on human rights for help, a pro-Tibet group has said.
Dolma Kyab (29), who taught at a school in Tibet's capital Lhasa before his arrest in March 2005, was jailed in September for 10 years, the Washington- based International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement. - (Reuters)
Gates donates €389m to fund
WASHINGTON - The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said yesterday it was giving $500 million (€389 million) to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, by far its biggest grant to the fund.
The money, to be given over five years, is the largest private donation to the fund, founded nearly five years ago to serve as the primary financing vehicle for efforts to fight the HIV pandemic, tuberculosis and malaria. - (Reuters)