■ United States
Schwarzenegger to respond
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger must answer written questions, but doesn't have to give a deposition in a libel lawsuit filed by a Hollywood stuntwoman who alleged he groped her on film sets, a judge ruled. Judge Robert Hess said Monday that the governor may be deposed later if attorneys for Rhonda Miller can justify it. "If you've got something perhaps a bit more compelling as to why you want to depose him, I think that that ought to be considered," the judge said.
■ Ivory Coast
Rivals agree to talks
The president and his opponents have agreed to hold talks aimed at breaking a political impasse threatening the fragile peace process in the world's top cocoa producer, officials said on Monday. But an alliance of President Laurent Gbagbo's critics, including rebel forces and a major opposition party, said it would still fulfil its vow to march tomorrow in the main city of Abidjan despite an official ban on protests.
■ Germany
Sale of nuclear plant in doubt
The German government is likely to drop its controversial plan to sell a mothballed nuclear plant to China, sources close to the government said on Monday. Plans to allow the sale had been fiercely criticized by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Green coalition partners and some of his own Social Democrats. Critics said the plant, designed to reprocess plutonium to make so-called mixed-oxide fuel rods for nuclear power stations, could be used to manufacture atomic weapons. They also said the export would smack of hypocrisy, since Berlin is committed to phasing out nuclear power on German soil. "We think it's over," said one source close to the government who declined to be named. "It's all being shelved with the aim that it should be forgotten."
■ Jamaica
Hermaphrodite avoids jail
A British drug smuggler caught trying to leave Jamaica with nearly 16kg of marijuana avoided a jail sentence Monday by claiming to be a hermaphrodite, or a person who has both male and female features. A perplexed Judge Valerie Stephens gave Jonathon Featherstone of Tottenham, London, a suspended six-month jail sentence and fined the individual US$4,800 after he -- or was it she -- admitted to trying to smuggle the drugs out of Jamaica on March 16. The judge was presented with a conundrum when an attorney for Featherstone, whose passport identifies the bearer as a male, declared that his client was in fact a "legal and functional female who can get pregnant and experiences normal female biological functions." The attorney said this would pose a problem for Jamaica's penal system because it had no arrangements for inmates with such physical characteristics.
RSS