A round-up of today's other world news stories in brief.
Iraqi doctor gets 32 years for bomb plan
LONDON - An Iraqi doctor was jailed for 32 years yesterday after being found guilty of planning car bomb attacks outside a nightclub in central London and at a packed Scottish airport a day later. Bilal Abdulla (29) was convicted on Tuesday of being part of a small Islamist cell that had planned a series of spectacular bombings but turned to a dramatic suicide ram-raid attack on Glasgow airport when their initial plans failed. - (Reuters)
Mafia boss found hanged in cell
ROME - One of the suspected Mafia bosses arrested this week in one of Sicily's biggest police operations has hanged himself in his prison cell, police said.
Gaetano Lo Presti, "godfather" of the Palermo district of Porta Nuova, was found dead on Tuesday night in Pagliarelli prison, in Palermo. He had been among 89 people seized in raids by carabinieri in Sicily and Tuscany. - (Guardian service)
Seized Chinese ship rescued
NAIROBI - A multilateral force rescued a Chinese ship from Somali pirates yesterday, in a sign foreign navies patrolling the shipping lane linking Europe to Asia are adopting tougher tactics.
The Chinese boat Zhenhua 4 was one of four vessels seized by pirates on Tuesday, the same day the United Nations Security Council took a strong stand against the attacks and authorised countries to pursue the gunmen on land. - (Reuters)
Eleven die in Somali gunfight
MOGADISHU - Eleven people were killed yesterday in fighting between Islamist insurgents and Ethiopian forces in the north of Somalias capital Mogadishu, residents and witnesses said.
The insurgents control the south of Somalia and carry out near-daily Iraqi-style assassinations and roadside bombings on government troops and their Ethiopian allies in the chaotic Horn of Africa nation. - (Reuters)
Dole queue lengthens in UK
LONDON - Britons out of work and claiming benefit rose for a 10th consecutive month in November and by the largest amount since March 1991, official data showed yesterday. The leap of 75,700 was much more than expected and took the total number of people claiming jobless benefit to over one million for the first time since 2001. - (Reuters)
Two sentenced to death in China
BEIJING - China has sentenced two people to death for an attack earlier this year that killed 17 people in the restive border region of Xinjiang, the Xinhua news agency said. Attackers rammed a truck into paramilitary police in August in the oasis city of Kashgar, then made use of explosives, a home-made gun and knives. - (Reuters)
Monroe photographs sold for $146,500
A collection of photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken for Voguemagazine the year she died were auctioned in New York City for $146,500.
A spokeswoman for Christie's auction house said the pre-sale estimate for the 36 photos taken by Bert Stern was $100,000 to $150,000.
Christie's said the photos from a 1962 shoot were the last professional images taken of Monroe before she died that year of a drug overdose.
They ran in Vogueinstead as a memorial.