A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Six killed in Madeira bus crash
A bus carrying Italian tourists turned over on a road in Portugal's Madeira Islands yesterday, killing six people, news reports said.
The bus was carrying about 50 Italian tourists who had arrived on a cruise ship that stopped off at the archipelago.
The Lisbon radio station TSF report did not specify the victims' nationalities. - (AP)
24-hour stoppage planned for tube
LONDON - Last-minute talks between London Underground and the RMT union over a planned New Year's Eve tube strike broke up yesterday without agreement.
The union plans a 24-hour stoppage on December 31st and another on January 8th and 9th following a staffing dispute. The strike could cause travel chaos on one of the busiest nights of the year and prevent people from taking advantage of the free Underground service on New Year's Eve which had been planned to run from 11.45pm to 4.30am on New Year's Day.- (Reuters)
Serial killer to be tried in France
BRUSSELS - Belgian justice minister Laurette Onkelinx yesterday approved the extradition of confessed serial killer Michel Fourniret to France, where he is to stand trial for the suspected killings of 19 people. Fourniret's wife was already handed over to French police and taken into custody for arraignment.
Fourniret is suspected of killing 19 people, mostly young women, in France and Belgium between the late 1980s and 1990s. He has admitted to some of the killings and has been formally charged with eight. - (AP)
Romania detects new bird flu cases
BUDAPEST - Authorities quarantined two villages in southeast Romania yesterday after four chickens tested positive for an H5 subtype of bird flu, an official said.
The virus was first detected late on Tuesday in tests in the village of Stelnica, some 145km east of Bucharest, in a sign that the virus was turning up west of the Danube Delta, where the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus was first confirmed in October.
The H5 virus was also detected in tests on poultry in the nearby village of Stefan Voda, the Agriculture Ministry said. - (AP)
Bomb blast near Kashmir airport
SRINAGAR - Suspected separatist militants exploded a bomb in a jeep near Srinagar airport in Indian Kashmir yesterday, police said, amid scattered violence in the disputed Himalayan region.
There were no reports of casualties in the blast and no group has claimed responsibility. - (Reuters)
'Corrie' pigs face chop in new year
LONDON - Two pigs who enjoyed eight weeks of stardom in Coronation Street could be facing the chop in the new year unless someone offers them a home.
Porky and Bess featured in a storyline in which street resident Keith Harris was rearing them for meat, sparking a campaign to save them. The pigs left the soap after finally being sold to butcher Fred Elliott.
In reality, they have been enjoying life at a children's farm in Warwickshire where they have become a star attraction. However, they are destined for an abattoir after Christmas. - (PA)
Ex-minister's body found
BRUSSELS - Belgian police have launched an investigation into the death of a former Rwandan minister wanted by a UN tribunal for genocide whose decomposed body was found in a Brussels canal, officials said yesterday.
Juvenal Uwilingiyimana had fled to Belgium in 1998, where he was granted political asylum. - (Reuters)