■ United States
Powell has cancer surgery
US Secretary of State Colin Powell underwent surgery on Monday for prostate cancer. He is expected to return to work shortly but on what the state department described as a "reduced schedule." The operation, described as a routine intervention, was performed at the Walter Reed army medical centre in Washington. Powell was expected to remain at the clinic for several days before recuperating at home. Powell's deputy, Richard Armitage, will temporarily assume his duties.
■ New Zealand
Stranded pilot flying again
An Australian pilot who was stranded in Antarctica after running low on fuel during a flight over the South Pole flew out of New Zealand yesterday, bound for the Australian city of Adelaide, officials said. Jon Johanson, who became the first pilot to fly a homemade airplane solo over the pole, flew out of Invercargill about 7:30am, airport operations manager Eric Forsyth said. The trip was expected to take 14 hours, Johanson said shortly before taking off westward across the Tasman Sea. He was left stranded on the ice continent after his polar flight ran into powerful head winds as he headed toward Argentina. He landed, short of fuel, at the US-New Zealand McMurdo-Scott base in Antarctica on Dec. 9.
■ United States
Hijack memorial funded
Congress has appropriated US$298,000 toward the creation of a memorial to the people killed when hijacked Flight 93 crashed in western Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001. All 40 passengers and crew aboard the San Francisco-bound flight were killed. The passengers apparently fought the hijackers for control of the aircraft after learning of the attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A design is to be completed by 2005. Last week, a coal company agreed to sell 320 hectares to a nonprofit group working to preserve land for the memorial. Others have donated smaller parcels at the crash site some 95km southeast of Pittsburgh.
■ Denmark
Convicts must pay for Viagra
Two prison bosses have been reprimanded for handing out the Viagra anti-impotence drug to inmates free of charge, officials said Monday. "If inmates want Viagra to be administered to them by the prison doctor they must pay for it themselves like every other citizen on the outside," said Justice Minister Lene Espersen. Espersen said in a letter to a far-right MP who complained about the practice that directors of two jails had been given a dressing down for handing out the blue pills to prisoners, mainly motorcycle gang members suffering impotence because of steroid use.
■ United Kingdom
Winnings given to charity
A 19-year-old British university student who won ?16,000 (US$27,952 dollars) as a contestant on the TV quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire has donated her windfall to a Thai childrens' charity, news reports said yesterday. Lydia Nash, a student at Oxford University, said she was tempted to blow the money she won in October on consumer goods, but instead decided to give it to the Christian Care Foundation for Children with Disabilities in Thailand. "I thought about keeping ?2,000 to buy a laptop computer and some really good speakers," The Nation newspaper quoted her as saying.
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