A round-up of today's other stories in brief
11 killed in stampede at concert
SEOUL - Thousands of people stampeded at a public-holiday music concert in South Korea yesterday, killing 11 and injuring more than 50.
More than 5,000 surged to enter one of the gates at a stadium in the southern city of Sangju; those waiting at the front fell and were crushed, the organiser of the concert, the broadcaster MBC, said in a news report.
Eight of the 11 killed were elderly or children, MBC said. - (Reuters)
Russian sent to face charges in US
GENEVA - Switzerland has said it will send Russia's former nuclear energy minister to the US to face fraud charges, but Russia has denounced the move as politically motivated.
The US accuses Yevgeny Adamov, who served under former president Boris Yeltsin in the early 1990s, of pocketing $9 million (€7.6 million) it sent to Moscow for nuclear safety projects. - (Reuters)
Migrants storm Spanish fences
MELILLA - About 650 sub- Saharan migrants charged border fences around Spain's north African enclave of Melilla yesterday and about 350 managed to get over when the fence collapsed, officials said.
About 135 people were injured, including seven police officers or soldiers, in the early morning assault.
It was the fourth mass attempt to enter Spain's north African enclaves since last week. - (Reuters)
France arrests top Eta members
MADRID - French police have arrested the second most senior member of the Basque separatist group Eta and two other suspected militants, Spanish interior minister José Antonio Alonso said yesterday.
Police arrested Harriet Aguirre, suspected lieutenant to Eta leader Garikoitz Aspiazu, or "Txeroki", and another leading member, Idoia Mendizabal. - (Reuters)
French sceptical of EU benefits
PARIS - The French are more dubious about the benefits of belonging to the European Union than the British, who are traditionally viewed as the arch-sceptics of the bloc, a poll showed yesterday.
Little more than four months after French voters rejected the EU constitution, a Sofres poll for Arte television showed 41 per cent of French people felt they were less well off because their country belonged to the 25-member EU, Le Monde newspaper reported. - (Reuters)
Darfur peace talks to go ahead
ABUJA - African Union mediators and delegates have agreed that Darfur peace talks should go ahead, in spite of growing violence in the region and rebel disunity.
The killing of at least 32 people in Darfur in the past two weeks and boycott threats by a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army/ Movement (SLA/M), the bigger of two rebel groups, raised fears the sixth round of talks would run into difficulties. - (Reuters)
Blast kills 21 on bus in Tajikistan
DUSHANBE - A powerful blast killed all 21 passengers on board when a bus running on liquefied gas collided with another bus in western Tajikistan.
The accident on Sunday occurred in a rural area 50km south of the central Asian state's capital of Dushanbe. - (Reuters)
August Wilson dies, aged 60
SEATTLE - August Wilson, an award-winning playwright whose work focused on the lives of black Americans, died of liver cancer on Sunday in Seattle. He was 60. Wilson's plays included Fences, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and The Piano Lesson. He won a Tony Award and two Pulitzer Prizes. - (Reuters)