A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Indian police shoot dead six students
GUWAHATI - Indian police shot dead six student protesters yesterday when a demonstration over college facilities turned violent in the northeastern state of Meghalaya.
Police said they opened fire after students tried to break through bamboo barricades during their illegal protest and attacked policemen in Tura, nearly 400km (250 miles) west of the state capital, Shillong. - (Reuters)
Anger over black abortions comment
LOS ANGELES - A leading Republican crusader on moral values has said that one way to reduce the crime rate in the US would be to "abort black babies".
William Bennett, who worked for Ronald Reagan and George Bush snr, said on his daily radio show: "If you wanted to reduce crime, you could - if that were your sole purpose - you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."
His comments were made in response to a hypothesis that links the falling crime rate to a rising abortion rate. Aborting black babies, he continued, would be "an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down".
Democrats have called for Bennett to withdraw his comments and for his radio show to be dropped. - (Guardian Service)
Oarsman crosses Atlantic in 124 days
CORNWALL - A British oarsman who made the slowest west-to-east Atlantic crossing by rowing boat arrived back in England yesterday after four months alone at sea. Oliver Hicks (23) became the youngest person to row an ocean solo when he reached the Isles of Scilly on Wednesday, nearly 124 days after setting off from New Jersey in the US.
He rowed into Falmouth, Cornwall, at 11.45am yesterday. - (PA)
Koizumi visits war shrine
OSAKA - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi violated Japan's constitution by visiting a Shinto shrine for war dead, a court has ruled, but analysts said that would not stop him from continuing the annual pilgrimages that have angered China and South Korea.- (Reuters)
UN report urges children's vaccines
YORK - An estimated 1.4 million children under five die unnecessarily each year from measles, whooping cough or tetanus, all of them preventable with vaccines, the United Nations children's fund, Unicef, has reported.
The worst-affected areas are in west and central Africa, in countries of conflict but also in Nigeria, a new Unicef report says. - (Reuters)
Deer, oh, deer, Santa's not happy
COPENHAGEN - Santa Claus will receive $5,000 in compensation from the Danish air force after an F-16 fighter jet frightened one of his reindeer to death.
Professional Danish Santa Olavi Niikanoff complained to the air force after a reindeer died with fright when a jet roared over the field where his animals were grazing. An air force spokesman said: "We acknowledge it was our fault and we have to pay compensation." - (Reuters)