Other world stories in brief
Cameron expels MP in cash scandal
LONDON- Conservative leader David Cameron has expelled from the parliamentary party an MP who gave his son almost £50,000 in public money.
Derek Conway (54) had said his son was acting as his researcher while at university and that the money had been paid in salary to him.
But the Commons standards committee found the son had done little or no work and the MP faces a possible police inquiry.
Frederick Conway ( 22), a Newcastle University geography student was paid almost £12,000 a year, plus bonuses, for almost three years. - (Reuters)
Court told of plot to behead soldier
LEICESTER- A man has pleaded guilty to a plot to kidnap and kill a Muslim soldier in the British army by cutting off his head "like a pig", a court was told yesterday.
Parviz Khan ( 37) pleaded guilty this month to a series of charges including the beheading plot, which was foiled by police and MI5 a year ago.
The prosecution said Khan was "enraged" by Muslims serving in the British army, which Islamist militants portray as fighting Islam in Afghanistan and Iraq, and hatched a plan to kidnap a Muslim soldier in Birmingham. - ( Reuters)
Nine bodies found in Baghdad
BAGHDAD- Nine bodies and 10 severed heads were found yesterday in an abandoned field north of Baghdad in a region where US and Iraqi forces are pressing ahead with offensives against al-Qaeda.
In the northern city of Mosul, a suicide car bomber killed one civilian and wounded 15 others in an attack on a US convoy. - (Reuters)
Harry Truman's daughter dies
CHICAGO- Margaret Truman Daniel, the only child of former US president Harry Truman, who became an author of popular murder mysteries, died yesterday aged 83, the Truman Library said. - (Reuters)
French police arrest Eta suspect
MADRID- French police have arrested one of the most wanted members of the Basque separatist group Eta, Spanish security sources said yesterday.
Ainhoa Adin, detained in the French city of Hendaye, is believed to be responsible for several attacks in the 1990s in which three people were killed, local media reported. - (Reuters)
Red tape keeps live man 'in the grave'
WARSAW- Red tape is preventing a Polish man from returning from the dead. Piotr Kucy ( 38) from the city of Polkowice in southwest Poland, was wrongly identified last August as a drowned man, only to show up a few days after his own funeral.
Despite pointing out that he was alive to government officials, Mr Kucy remains dead in official records, stopping him from working and paying social insurance. - (Reuters)