A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Iranian envoy in denial of Holocaust
LISBON - Iran's ambassador to Portugal has said it would have taken the Nazis 15 years to burn the corpses of six million people, a remark reflecting the denials of the Holocaust made by his president.
"When I was ambassador in Warsaw, I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau twice and made my calculations," ambassador Mohammed Taheri said in an interview with Portuguese state radio.
Taheri also said the publication by European newspapers of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad was an Israeli conspiracy designed to cause conflict between Muslims and Christians. - (Reuters)
Italian schools to keep crucifixes
ROME - A leading Italian court yesterday ruled schools should keep hanging crucifixes on classroom walls, rejecting appeals by secularists looking to sharpen the division between church and state.
The Council of State, the highest court for administrative affairs, said the crucifix was legal because it was not just a religious symbol but also denoted values at the heart of civil society in Italy. - (Reuters)
Katyn massacre to be recalled
BERLIN - Celebrated Polish director Andrzej Wajda said yesterday he aims to finish a film close to his heart this year about the 1940 Soviet massacre of 15,000 Polish soldiers, including his own father, in the Katyn forest.
Wajda, in Berlin to collect a lifetime achievement award from the Berlin Film Festival, said most Poles always knew it was a Soviet atrocity even though propaganda during the second World War and afterwards wrongly tried to pin the blame on Germany. - (Reuters)
Agency admits it was unprepared
WASHINGTON - The federal Department of Homeland Security quickly became overwhelmed by Hurricane Katrina despite having personnel and supplies in place, secretary Michael Chertoff told a Senate panel yesterday.
In testimony prepared for the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Mr Chertoff said that he was accountable and accepted responsibility for the department's performance in responding to the catastrophe. - (Reuters)
British-born papal envoy to Egypt
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict yesterday named a British-born archbishop, a senior Vatican expert on relations with Islam, as the papal envoy to Egypt.
Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald (68) has been heading the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. He helped arrange the late Pope John Paul II's visit to a mosque in Damascus, Syria, the first ever by a pope to a Muslim house of worship. - (AP)
French winemakers want state help
NARBONNE - Thousands of winemakers protested in southern France yesterday to press the government to help them cope with a drop in domestic consumption and fierce competition from "New World" rivals. - (Reuters)