Other wolrd stories in brief
Boat carrying 80 sinks in Amazon
BRASILIA -A boat carrying more than 80 people sank yesterday at dawn on a major river in the Amazon rain forest.
The boat sank before 6am on the Solimoes river, about 80km (50 miles) from Manaus, a spokesman for the city's fire department said.
It was returning an estimated 80 revellers from a party, he said.
According to CBN radio, as many as 150 people were on board the boat, which had a capacity of 50 people. Twelve bodies were found and more than 40 are missing, CBN said. - (Reuters)
Santa Cruz votes on autonomy
SANTA CRUZ- Bolivia's richest region of Santa Cruz voted yesterday on a plan for greater autonomy from the central government in a referendum seen as a defiant rejection of President Evo Morales's leftist reforms.
Voting was mainly calm, although clashes broke out in several poorer areas of the tropical region soon after the polls opened as backers of Mr Morales, a former coca farmer, ransacked polling stations and burned ballots in protest. - (Reuters)
Anglican primate to meet pope
VATICAN CITY- Pope Benedict is expected to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams today in only the second official meeting between the two religious leaders, a Vatican source said.
The meeting comes less than two months after the Vatican's top officials for relations with Islam criticised Dr Williams as mistaken and naive for suggesting that some aspects of Sharia law in Britain were unavoidable.
Dr Williams, the spiritual leader for the world's 77 million Anglicans, last held talks with the pope in November 2006. - ( Reuters)
Spy drones 'shot down' in Georgia
SUKHUMI- Separatists in Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region said yesterday they had shot down two Georgian spy drones over the territory they control, but Georgia denied there had been any flights in the area.
Russia, which backs the separatists in Abkhazia, said the drone flights were illegal and showed Georgia was intent on fanning tension in the regions. - (Reuters)