A roundup of today's other world stories in brief:
Police fear British girl (3) was kidnapped
LISBON- A three-year-old British girl may have been kidnapped from her bed in a Portuguese beach resort while her parents dined nearby, family friends and a police source said yesterday. "We are investigating," the source said. "But as time goes by the other possibilities [besides kidnapping] are starting to lose importance."
Authorities had talked to the parents of missing Madeleine McCann yesterday after her disappearance on Thursday night from a holiday villa in the southern Algarve area, the source said.
The parents had put her to bed and were dining 50 metres away with friends when she vanished from the apartment where they were staying.
- (Reuters)
Turkish PM to be investigated
ANKARA- A Turkish prosecutor has decided to investigate prime minister Tayyip Erdogan for his comments criticising a constitutional court decision to cancel a contested presidential election, CNN Turk said yesterday.
Turkey's highest court ruled on Tuesday that the first round of the presidential election was invalid due to a lack of quorum in the parliament. Foreign minister Abdullah Gul, a former Islamist and senior AK Party member, is the only candidate.
- (Reuters)
New York set for congestion charge
NEW YORK- New York mayor Michael Bloomberg aims to price rush-hour drivers out of Manhattan with an $8 (€6) fee, borrowing from traffic and air quality strategies used in London and Singapore.
The fee would be a first in the United States and add an expense to what is already one of the nation's costliest cities.
- (Reuters)
'Love' behind pair's hotel suicide
BEIJING- A man and a woman killed themselves "for love" with a bomb that exploded in a hotel room in China's southwestern province of Yunnan, police and media said yesterday.
Local police think the pair had an adulterous affair and chose to die together rather than live apart.
- (Reuters)
Fortuyn's party runs out of cash
AMSTERDAM- Just days before the fifth anniversary of the killing of Dutch right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn, his party has sunk into political obscurity and closed its headquarters as it ran out of cash.
As no member of the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF) still holds a national or regional office, the headquarters in The Hague are no longer necessary, party secretary Jens Van der Vorm told the Dutch daily Het Financieele Dagblad.
- (Reuters)