A round-up of today's other stories in brief
EU warns Turkey over novelist's trial
BRUSSELS - The EU has warned Turkey that its trial of novelist Orhan Pamuk for allegedly insulting the country has put Ankara itself in the dock over its commitment to European values.
"It is not Orhan Pamuk who will stand trial tomorrow, but Turkey," said enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn, who is overseeing Turkey's EU entry talks. - (Reuters)
Man catches baby flung from fire
NEW YORK - A New York woman threw her 11-month- old son from the third floor of a burning building and the baby was caught by an amateur baseball player standing outside.
Television stations aired a videotape of Wednesday's dramatic rescue in the Bronx taken by a surveillance camera. It showed the baby, swathed in white, tumbling some 30 feet (nine metres) into the arms of housing authority employee Felix Vazquez. Neither mother nor baby was seriously injured. - (Reuters)
NHS hospitals fail cleanliness check
LONDON - Two-thirds of NHS and private hospitals that were spot-checked failed to meet the highest standards of cleanliness, the British government's healthcare commission said yesterday.
Inspectors arrived at 98 hospitals in England unannounced between July and September. They found 33 achieving top levels of cleanliness, 43 with room for improvement, 16 where standards were unsatisfactory and six - all NHS mental hospitals - with "serious and widespread problems" with cleanliness. - (Reuters)
Romania warns of spread of bird flu
BUCHAREST - Romania has confirmed cases of deadly avian flu in birds in five more villages in and around the Danube delta and warns that migratory flocks could carry the virus south to neighbouring Bulgaria. The H5N1 virus has now been found in at least nine Romanian villages in the east of the country. - (Reuters)
Schröder under fire over new job
BERLIN - Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder faces fresh criticism from opposition politicians and a leading EU official over his new job heading a Russian-led gas pipeline.
Siim Kallas, the European commissioner for audits and fraud prevention, yesterday said Mr Schröder's move "compromises Germany as a state".
Even members of Mr Schröder's own party joined in the criticism during a special parliamentary debate. Critics say he has moved with unseemly haste to take a job that blurs the line between politics and business.
In particular, it has revived criticism that Mr Schröder's close friendship with President Vladimir Putin led him to overlook abuses of democracy and human rights in Russia while he was in office. - (Reuters)