The French justice minister on Monday ordered an inquiry into allegations of undercover searches, break-ins and multiple phone taps at the offices of the judge who last week convicted President Jacques Chirac's most loyal lieutenant of political corruption. A court in Nanterre on Friday handed Alain Juppe, the chairman of Chirac's ruling UMP party and widely seen as its next presidential candidate, an 18-month suspended jail sentence and barred him from elected office for 10 years over a fake jobs scandal involving party militants whose salaries were paid by Paris city hall. Juppe is considered to have carried the can for Chirac who, as mayor of Paris for 18 years, would certainly have been among the accused were it not for his presidential immunity.
■ Kenya
British farmer murdered
An elderly British farmer was murdered and his wife seriously injured by intruders who broke into their farm in Kenya, it emerged on Sunday. There was no evidence of a robbery and police have not yet established a motive for the attack, which has shocked the closely knit community in Gilgil, in the Rift valley. Neighbors said there had been a spate of violent burglaries in the area. They do not believe the murder had a racial motive. Police used sniffer dogs to track down three suspects, including the couple's gardener.
■ Poland
Wicker coffins a hit abroad
The owner of a Polish company that manufactures coffins made out of wicker is making a killing in Britain, where they are being snapped up because they are cheap and burn easily, the PAP news agency reported Sunday. The coffins, which are patented in Poland and can withstand a weight of 300kg, have also raised interest in France, Sweden and Denmark, where cremation is customary, the manufacturer Stanislaw Walicki is quoted as saying. "We are sending a first shipment of 30 coffins to France," he said. He said he sends on average about 100 coffins a month to Britain. In Poland the invention has attracted little attention even though Walicki has offered a wicker coffin free of charge to the first customer.
■ United States
Manilow suffers chest pains
Singer Barry Manilow was rushed to a hospital in Palm Springs, California, suffering from chest pains, his publicist said. Manilow was hospitalized after returning home earlier in the day from New York, where he "endured two of the most grueling days of arbitration" in a lawsuit in which he and co-writer Bruce Sussman are fighting to regain the rights to their stage musical Harmony, said publicist Jerry Sharell. Manilow, who has released more than 40 albums, was most popular in the 1970s, when he turned out a string of popular radio hits including Mandy, I Write the Songs and Copacabana.
■ United States
Couple names son `2.0'
Tacking `Junior' or `II' onto a boy's name is too common, a new father decided, so the self-described engineering geek took a software approach to naming his newborn son. Jon Blake Cusack talked his wife, Jamie, into naming their son Jon Blake Cusack 2.0. Version 2.0 was born last Tuesday. "I wanted to find something different to name him," Cusack said. He said he had the idea for a few months, and spent the better part of that time persuading his wife to go along.
RSS