A roundup of today's other world stories in brief:
Faulty points found at fatal rail crash site
LONDON -Inspectors investigating the cause of a high-speed rail crash in Cumbria said yesterday that a set of points near the site of the accident had been faulty.
Officials from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch said in a preliminary report on the accident that one of three stretcher bars was absent, another had nuts and bolts missing and both were fractured.
An elderly woman died and 22 people were taken to hospital when the Glasgow-bound Pendolino tilting train derailed last Friday in a remote country area.
- (Reuters)
More UK troops for Afghanistan
LONDON- Britain will send an extra 1,400 troops to Afghanistan after failing to persuade most other Nato members to boost forces fighting the Taliban, British defence secretary Des Browne told parliament yesterday.
... "In terms of overall numbers, this adds up to nearly 1,400 additional personnel, the majority of whom will deploy over the course of the summer," said Mr Browne.
- (Reuters)
200-year jail term upheld by court
WASHINGTON- The US supreme court yesterday let stand a 200-year prison term for an Arizona man convicted of possessing 20 child pornography images, turning down his appeal that the sentence was excessive or cruel and unusual punishment.
Without any comment, the high court declined to hear the constitutional challenge to the sentence given to Morton Berger, who at the time of his arrest in 2002 was a married, 52-year-old high school teacher with no prior criminal record.
- (Reuters)
French ex-pats shot dead in Saudi
RIYADH -Three French expatriates working in Saudi Arabia were shot dead during a desert trip yesterday in what appeared to be the first militant attack on foreigners in three years.
An interior ministry statement said gunmen in a car fired at a group of nine French nationals after stopping them near Medina in the west of the vast desert country.
"They are all residents who work in Riyadh and who had gone on a desert trip," interior ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said, adding that the attackers escaped after apparently stalking the group as they camped overnight.
- (Reuters)
Thief's fingers amputated in Iran
TEHRAN- A thief convicted of multiple robberies had four fingers amputated in public in west Iran yesterday. The 46-year-old, named as F Hosseini, had committed 22 offences, mostly involving opening safes.
- (Reuters)
Jade Goody makes trip to India
DELHI -Jade Goody has finally made her trip to India following the Big Brother race row.
Goody (25) has left boyfriend Jack Tweed (19), and her two sons Freddy (2) and Bobby (3), at home and is staying at a hotel in Delhi.
She said: "I'm here on a private visit, for four days. People have been really nice out here. It's private and there are no cameras or anything. I've paid for the trip myself. That's all I want to say."
- (PA)