A round-up of today's other stories in brief...
At least 11 dead in Afghan offensive
KABUL – Taliban-led insurgents killed at least 11 people across Afghanistan in a renewed springtime offensive yesterday despite a huge security clampdown, hours after the United Nations pleaded for all sides to avoid civilian casualties.
The hardline Islamists have warned civilians to stay away from all public gatherings, military bases and convoys, as well as government offices, because those sites would be the target of a wave of attacks beginning yesterday. –(Reuters)
Air France aircraft black box found
PARIS – Deep-sea search parties have found one of two flight data recorders from an Air France flight that crashed off the coast of Brazil in 2009, investigators said yesterday, reviving hopes of understanding what caused the crash.
French investigators said the data recorder, or black box, had been hauled up to the deck of a search boat.
Pictures published on the website of France’s BEA air accident inquiry office, before the box was pulled to the surface, show an orange cylindrical object half-buried in sand.
Officials said it was too early to say whether the black box, which records data from the aircraft’s instruments but no voices, would yield information about the cause of the crash. –(Reuters)
Clive James (71) battling leukaemia
SYDNEY – Veteran TV presenter and critic Clive James has leukaemia, it has emerged.
The 71-year-old Australian, who lives in England, has been battling with the illness for 15 months.
Australian Associated Press reported that his illness was disclosed by the editor of the Australian Literary Review, Luke Slattery, who said he wrote to James after his requests for an essay were politely rebuffed on grounds of ill health and after James referred to several life-threatening conditions in his poetry.
James wrote back saying that he was hospitalised for kidney failure and was diagnosed with several lung diseases and a version of leukaemia “that is supposed to develop slowly but in my case couldn’t wait to get started, mainly in my lungs”. – (PA)