A round-up of today's other stories in brief:
Leaders sign coalition deal in Ukraine
KIEV - Leaders of Ukraine's Orange Revolution signed a preliminary deal yesterday to form a new coalition government but failed to give an answer to the sticky question of who will become the next prime minister.
Firebrand Yulia Tymoshenko, Socialist party leader Oleksander Moroz and Roman Bezsmertny, representing President Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party, signed the agreement.
- (Reuters)
Tribal militia kill 25 in land dispute
NAMU - Tribal militia armed with guns, machetes, and bows and arrows killed about 25 people in three days in a land dispute in the central Nigerian state of Plateau, authorities and witnesses said yesterday.
The blackened shells of at least 20 houses could be seen on the outskirts of the deserted town of Namu, 100km (75 miles) east of the capital Abuja
- (Reuters)
Tamil rebels to attend peace talks
COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels said yesterday they will attend peace talks in Switzerland, surprising diplomats, who had taken a string of lethal attacks in recent days to mean the meeting was off.
Repeated suspected rebel attacks on government forces and ethnic violence have killed more than 40 people in the bloodiest week since a 2002 ceasefire, sharply raising fears of a return to civil war.
- (Reuters)
Man may face PC murder charge
LONDON - A man arrested for drunken domestic violence in the north of England could face a murder charge after a police car taking him to the cells crashed following a reported disturbance, killing the constable at the wheel.
PC Joe Carroll (46) died when his patrol car skidded off a main road in Northumberland at 2.30am yesterday, overturned and slid up an embankment on its roof. The arrested man and a police inspector who was also in the car were treated for minor injuries.
- (Guardian Service)
Riot police storm Jordanian prison
AMMAN - One inmate was killed and at least 35 prisoners and policemen injured when riot police stormed a Jordanian prison cell holding Islamist security detainees yesterday, witnesses and security officials said.
They said the clashes erupted in Qafqafa jail at dawn when police in riot gear rushed into a cell holding more than 34 detainees, including several al-Qaeda militants convicted of foiled plots to attack US and Israeli targets.
- (Reuters)
Georgia hopeful of joining Nato
BRUSSELS - Georgia voiced optimism yesterday that its attempt to join Nato would move ahead this year and said Russia would be unable to block the process.
Georgia has sought closer ties with the West since a "Rose Revolution" in late 2003 brought in a Western-leaning government.
- (Reuters)
Man threw eggs at Turkish leader
ANKARA - A Turkish man who threw eggs at Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was given a 14-month suspended jail sentence yesterday, CNN Turk television said.
Murat Bektasoglu, head of a community centre in the Black Sea city of Trabzon, hurled the eggs at Mr Erdogan in protest at government policies, when the prime minister visited the city last year.
- (Reuters)
Scandal threatens Vietnam's rulers
HANOI - Vietnam's Communist Party, embroiled in a bribery and gambling scandal that brought down a cabinet minister, said yesterday corruption was "a threat to the survival" of its government.
- (Reuters)