A round-up of other stories in brief
France hopes for deal on Betancourt
PARIS -France has said it is ready to evacuate French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt in the event of a deal between Colombia and rebels holding her.
A spokesman for President Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday a plane with medical facilities would be kept on standby in France ready to intervene "at any time" on Mr Sarkozy's orders.
Colombia said on Saturday France would be willing to take in former guerrilla fighters as part of a possible deal to free scores of hostages, including Ms Betancourt.
The proposal is part of a package of offers President Alvaro Uribe has made to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in an effort to prompt rebels to free kidnap victims held for as long as 10 years. - (Reuters)
Hopes fade for trapped miners
MERERANI -Hopes faded yesterday for 65 miners feared drowned in Tanzania after floods swept through a remote gemstone mine near Mount Kilimanjaro.
Manyara Regional Commissioner Henry Shekifu said six bodies had been recovered and that 59 workers were missing after the disaster in the northern town of Mererani.
Thirty-five people had been rescued. "That's the latest information we have this morning," Mr Shekifu said by telephone from the scene.
He said eight pits were inundated early on Saturday, drowning miners .- (Reuters)
Palestinian killed as tunnel falls
ISMAILIA -One Palestinian was killed and another severely injured when a tunnel used for smuggling between the Gaza Strip and Egypt collapsed on them, Egyptian medical and security sources said yesterday.
Palestinian Abdel Rahman Atieh Gomaa (28) had fallen into a coma and was rushed to a hospital in the Egyptian coastal town of El-Arish. He had been trying to cross from Gaza into Egypt near the border town of Rafah, Egyptian security sources said.
An unidentified Palestinian was also killed in the tunnel collapse, eyewitnesses said.
Dozens of underground tunnels, used to smuggle contraband and people, crisscross the frontier between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Cave-ins and accidents are commonplace .- (Reuters)
Three die in helicopter crash
OSLO -A Russian helicopter crashed in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic yesterday, killing three of the nine people on board, the regional governor's office said.
"Three of the passengers are confirmed dead and two others are seriously injured," Synnoeve Haga, information adviser for the governor of Svalbard, said.- (Reuters)
Picasso painting uncovered
LONDON -A watercolour by Picasso depicting the artist and one of his first girlfriends in an intimate clinch has been discovered stacked up against a wall in the bedroom of a house in the West Country, south-west England .- (Guardian service)