A roundup of today's other stories in brief.
Berlusconi well after US heart surgery
ROME -Italy's former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who had a heart scare last month, has undergone successful surgery in a US hospital, it was reported yesterday.
Quoting sources at a clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, the report said the operation was "simple", without giving further details.
There has been intense media speculation that Mr Berlusconi, who was admitted to hospital for three days after collapsing at a rally late last month, would have to be fitted with a pacemaker. His doctors identified an irregular heartbeat but said there was no reason for concern. - (Reuters)
Corrupt Iraqi minister escapes
BAGHDAD -Iraq's former electricity minister - a dual US-Iraqi citizen who was jailed for corruption - escaped police custody with the help of security agents he once hired to protect him, an anti-corruption official said yesterday.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a car bomb killed five people and wounded at least 19 in the southern Sunni area of Sadiya. Meanwhile, the US military announced the deaths of three more American troops, raising to 60 the number of US personnel killed in December. - (PA)
Fidel Castro 'not terminally ill'
HAVANA -Fidel Castro is not terminally ill and will make a public appearance shortly, but is unlikely to return to governing Cuba on a day-to-day basis, Cuban government officials told a visiting delegation of members of the US Congress.
"The party line is that Fidel is coming back. He does not have cancer," according to Jane Harman, a Democrat. - (Reuters)
Hizbullah calls for Lebanese election
BEIRUT -Lebanon's opposition, led by Syrian-backed Hizbullah, yesterday called for early parliamentary elections after the ruling anti-Syrian coalition refused to meet its demand for veto power in government. The call could complicate Arab League efforts to end Lebanon's worst political crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. - (Reuters)
State not to appeal bushmen's victory
GABORONE -Botswana's government said yesterday it would not appeal a high court ruling that hundreds of bushmen had been wrongly evicted from ancestral hunting grounds and should be allowed to return.
The president's office said in a statement it would not initiate an appeal in the case which saw Africa's last hunter-gatherers take on one of the continent's most admired governments in a dispute over diamond-rich land and development priorities. - (Reuters)