■ United States
ABC newscaster dies
David Brinkley, the newscaster whose distinct speaking style and wry wit made him an American household name for half a century, has died at the age of 82. Jeffrey Schneider, vice president of ABC News, his former employer, said on Thursday that Brinkley died at his Houston home just before midnight from complications caused by a fall. For nearly half a century, Brinkley was one of the dominant faces in American broadcasting, first as a co-anchor of NBC television's evening news program and later as host of the Sunday current affairs program on ABC, This Week with David Brinkley. Brinkley helped shape American TV news as one of the first journalists to be totally comfortable with the new medium.
■ Poland
PM wants vote of confidence
Poland's embattled left-leaning government faces a parliamentary vote of confidence yesterday, days after Poles overwhelmingly voted in favor of their formerly communist nation's joining the EU next year. In a gamble to shore up his government amid widespread criticism it is too weak to push through the reforms before the country enters the EU, Prime Minister Leszek Miller called for the vote on Monday. Calls for Miller's departure first surfaced in March, when he dropped his junior coalition partner, the Peasants' Party, after repeated clashes over government policies aimed at combatting record high unemployment of 19 percent and an economic slump.
■ United States
Researcher jailed for theft
A Chinese researcher was sentenced to a year in prison for stealing yeast cultures and other potentially lucrative biological materials from Cornell University and trying to smuggle them to China. Yin Qingqiang, a former postdoctoral research associate at Cornell, was given credit for time served and will spend 10 months behind bars. He was convicted in December of theft and lying to the FBI. Yin was arrested at the Syracuse airport last July after security officers found vials, test tubes and petri dishes hidden in his family's luggage as they tried to board a flight to Shanghai.
■ South Africa
Food shortages serious
Despite a bumper crop of grain and plentiful rains this harvest season, food shortages remain a serious problem in large pockets of southern Africa, a UN agency reported on Thursday. While nowhere near the severe shortages several countries faced last harvest season, when floods and drought severely damaged crops, aid workers said that even with the best possible weather conditions and with much international help, many nations in southern Africa will be simply unable to feed their people.
Agencies
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