Venezuelan mother Jenny Navarro has sold off her television and video player to keep her family afloat -- now she is offering to sell one of her kidneys for US$150,000 to pay for her children's education. "I'm willing to do whatever I can for my kids," said Navarro, an unemployed systems technician who shares a room with her three children in a poor neighborhood in eastern Caracas and is struggling to survive the recession battering her country. "It's getting desperate. They are not going to miss their education because of me," she said in an interview. Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, is caught in the worst economic downturn in its history amid political conflict over the rule of leftist President Hugo Chavez.
■ Colombia
Truck bomb wounds 17
A truck bomb exploded near a radio station in central Colombia on Sunday, wounding at least 17 people, police said. Authorities blamed rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, for the attack in the town of San Martin, near the city of Villavicencio in Meta state. Jose Arnulfo, the police commander in Meta state, told Canal Uno Television that between 17 and 20 people were wounded in the blast, which severely damaged Super Radio, a gas station and several houses. Authorities offered 20 million pesos (about US$7,000) for information leading to the arrest of those responsible.
■ France
Farmer's leader steps down
France's best-known farmer, Jose Bove, said Sunday that he will step down next year as spokesman of his radical union and anti-globalization movement, the Farmers' Confederation. Bove, who gained fame as an anti-globalization activist in 1999 by ransacking a McDonald's restaurant under construction in southern France, said he would leave the job in April. Speaking during a massive protest against the World Trade Organization, Bove suggested he didn't want to continue to dominate the group. ``It would be very dangerous to personalize the movement,'' he said. The Farmers' Confederation promotes traditional agriculture and opposes genetically modified produce and fast food.
■ Outer space
Couple marries via satellite
A cosmonaut circling 380km above the earth on the International Space Station married his fiance in Texas on Sunday in the first space wedding. Peering into each other's eyes via a satellite video hookup at NASA's Johnson Space Center, the two exchanged vows before 200 people in a ceremony that ended with bride Ekaterina Dmitriev blowing new Ukrainian husband Yuri Malenchenko a long distance kiss.
■ United States
Dancer Hines dies of cancer
Actor and dancer Gregory Hines, 57, who tap-danced his way to fame in movies such as The Cotton Club and White Nights, died of cancer on Saturday, his publicist said Sunday. Hines, who won a Tony award for best actor in the musical Jelly's Last Jam, was born in New York and learned to tap-dance at the age of three. Hines and his brother Maurice performed together in the musical revue Eubie! in 1978 and in Broadway's Sophisticated Ladies. On television, he had his own series in 1997 called The Gregory Hines Show. Gregory Oliver Hines was born on Feb. 14, 1946, in New York City.
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