Today's other stories in brief
Hopes fade in Utah for six trapped miners
UTAH - Rescuers were due to start drilling a fifth hole into a collapsed Utah coal mine last night as hopes faded of finding alive six miners trapped for nearly two weeks. "It's possible they may not be found," Rob Moore, vice-president of mine co-owner Murray Energy, said.
The men have not been heard from since Crandall Canyon mine collapsed on August 6th. - (Reuters)
Iran's nuclear work 'non-stop'
TEHRAN - Iran's nuclear programme is continuing "non-stop", an Iranian official said yesterday on the eve of high-level talks with the UN atomic watchdog.
Iran, under UN pressure to suspend activities, agreed in June to draft an "action plan" within 60 days to give the International Atomic Energy Agency more access to its facilities and resolve questions about the nature of its programme. Having repeatedly rejected demands to stop enriching uranium for fuel, diplomats say Iran is showing signs of co-operation with the IAEA. - (Reuters)
Egyptian police detain 12 Islamists
CAIRO - Egyptian police, engaged in a fresh crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood, detained 12 members of the country's strongest opposition group at dawn yesterday, officials said.
Police detained seven Islamists in Alexandria and five in Sharkiya province. - (Reuters)
Rudd apologises for sex club visit
SYDNEY - Australia's opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, who is well placed to win the general election due soon, has been forced to apologise for visiting a strip club during a taxpayer-funded trip to New York four years ago. Mr Rudd, the Labour leader, said he had made a "foolish mistake". The revelations have dented his image as a committed Christian and family man. - (Guardian service)
Jordan parliament dissolved for polls
AMMAN - Jordan's king Abdullah issued a decree yesterday dissolving parliament and called on the government to prepare for multiparty polls later this year, officials said.
They said the decree dissolving the 110-member parliament, whose four-year term formally ended last April, and the call to prepare for elections, was a sign that the monarch would not use his constitutional right to delay the polls. - (Reuters)
French paedophile prescribed Viagra
PARIS - A French paedophile accused of raping a five-year-old boy just over a month after he was released from jail was taking the impotence drug Viagra, which he says was prescribed by a prison doctor, his lawyer said yesterday.
Francis Evrard (61), a repeat offender who spent 18 years in prison for raping children before being freed on July 2nd, snatched the boy from a street in the northern town of Roubaix last Wednesday. - (Reuters)
5,000-year-old gum discovered
LONDON - A 5,000-year-old piece of chewing gum - one of the oldest to be discovered - has been found by a British archaeology student. The Neolithic gum, made from birch bark tar, was found in Finland. - (Guardian service)