■ Italy
Boy traded for color TV
A pensioner and his wife were being questioned by detectives last night for allegedly buying an Albanian boy whose father had traded him for a color TV set. Police believe a trafficking ring responsible for selling the boy has smuggled more than 60 children into Italy, posing as their parents. The case has once again focused attention on the trafficking of women and children from Albania, amid growing concern across Europe that small mafia-style gangs are generating a lucrative slave trade. Police have evidence that the couple paid 10 million lira three years ago for the child, then three, whom they called Tomaso. The child's father had swapped his youngest son for a color television.
■ Colombia
Rebels claim abduction
The second-largest rebel group in Colombia said it was holding seven foreign backpackers kidnapped this month from an archaeological site in the mountains. It was the first claim of responsibility for the abduction. The National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, did not make any demands in its statement, but said Monday it was open to negotiations "to find a solution." The group of eight backpackers -- four Israelis, two Britons, a German and a Spaniard -- was abducted by gunmen on Sept. 12 from the Lost City archaeological ruins in the snowcapped Sierra Nevada mountains.
■ Germany
Marathon saves drug addict
Medics at the Berlin marathon saved the life of a collapsed heroin addict when they mistook him for a competitor. The head of the marathon's medical team said some of his doctors found and resuscitated a 40-year-old man wearing a numbered race bib who had collapsed on a railway platform at the 37km mark of the 42km marathon. "It turned out he was a heroin addict," said Willi Heepe. "He smelled of alcohol, but he was wearing running shoes. We thought he was a runner. The Berlin marathon probably saved his life," said Heepe.
■ United kingdom
Brits believe Blair lied
Nearly 60 percent of Britons believe Prime Minister Tony Blair lied over the threat posed by Iraq in the run-up to the US-led war to oust former president Saddam Hussein, an opinion poll showed yesterday. The NOP poll, published by the Independent newspaper, found 41 percent wanted Blair to resign while 52 percent did not. Fifty-nine percent thought Blair lied over Iraq and 29 percent did not. Other polls have also shown a majority of Britons no longer trust Blair after the failure of US-led forces to find any banned weapons in Iraq, his main justification for the war. The NOP poll suggested that replacing Blair with Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown would not boost the party's appeal significantly.
RSS