■ AustriaIAEA wants Libya control
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should be the sole agency verifying the disarmament of Libya's nuclear program and the US role should be to supply logistical support, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Monday as he went in to a meeting with top US and British diplomats. "The agency mandate is clear. The agency has to perform its role thoroughly and independently ... Our role in verification is very clear. We do all the verification, nothing but verification," ElBaradei said as he went into talks with John Bolton, US undersecretary of state for arms control and nuclear proliferation.
■ Ireland
Airliner bomb a hoax
A Delta Air Lines jet traveling from Germany to the US made an emergency landing in Ireland Sunday because of a bomb threat that turned out to be unsubstantiated, police and airport authorities said. Frankfurt-to-Atlanta Flight 27 landed at Shannon airport in the west of Ireland after the crew discovered a note in a toilet suggesting there could be a bomb aboard the plane, said Siobhan Moore, spokeswoman for airport operating company Aer Rianta. Delta said the plane landed three hours after takeoff from Frankfurt. Hours later, investigators finished a search of the plane and determined that no bombs were aboard, said Martin Casey of the Irish police.
■ Haiti
Violence in Aristide protest
One person was killed and five were wounded on Sunday when gunmen took to the streets to break up an anti-government demonstration in Haiti's capital. People hiding in alleys and on rooftops threw rocks and bottles and fired shots as thousands of anti-government demonstrators marched through the streets of Port-au-Prince. The protest, like many in recent weeks, was organized by leaders of a coalition intent on forcing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to resign. Several thousand students and others walked and ran up and down the capital's hilly streets for almost four hours, chanting anti-Aristide slogans.
■ Russia
World's oldest person
A Chechen great-great-grandmother born in 1881 could be the oldest person in the world, Russian state television reported, saying she beat the current record-holder by eight years. Pasikhat Dzhukalayeva has nine grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren, and seven great-great-grandchildren who call her `Granny s.' "I do not know why I have lived so long. I have buried five brothers and sisters, and four children," said the wrinkled Dzhukalayeva, who moves around in a wheelchair. She showed off a passport giving her year of birth.
■ Great Britain
Assaults on Hawking feared
British police are investigating a series of alleged mysterious assaults on disabled top British scientist Stephen Hawking, the Daily Mirror reported. The paper said detectives wanted to question Hawking, a Cambridge University professor and author of the best selling Brief History of Time, about a number of minor injuries he had recently suffered. "The family are worried sick. They've been suspicious for some time that someone has been harming Stephen," an unnamed source told the paper. The world famous physicist is confined to a wheelchair after contracting motor neurone disease, a muscle-wasting condition, while at university. He can only speak through a computerized voice synthesizer.
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