■ Nigeria
Violence deters voters
Nigerians stayed away from local council polls on Saturday after at least 40 people were killed in two days of violence, undermining confidence in the country's five-year-old democracy. Turnout for the first local elections since the end of military rule in 1999 was low across the country, witnesses said, as people stayed at home to avoid trouble amid widespread disillusionment with recent votes.
■ France
Trio attacks Gibson film
Three Jewish brothers have asked a Paris court to ban Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, saying that it risks stirring up hatred of Jews in France. Patrick, Gerard and Jean-Marc Benlolo presented their case on Friday to a Paris judge and then went together to a screening of the film with a lawyer for the movie's French distributor. A verdict is expected today, ahead of the film's scheduled opening in France on Wednesday. The Benlolo complaint argues the film has a "false and erroneous vision of certain religious events" and will "stir anti-Jewish hatred."
■ Canada
Inspector catches bird flu
A Food Inspection Agency worker caught the bird flu virus after handling dead chickens on a western Canadian poultry farm, a health officer said. The worker contracted the H7 virus in what appears to be the first time a human has picked up the avian flu in Canada, Dr. Perry Kendall told the Vancouver Sun The person exhibited conjunctivitis, or pink eye, but the symptoms have since cleared up, the health officer said in an article published Saturday. The H7 virus is not the same strain that has killed several people in Asia and is not believed to pose any serious risk to humans. A number of other workers showing mild, cold-like symptoms also are being tested, a regional medical health officer said.
■ United Kingdom
Queen had backup plan
Queen Elizabeth II would have been spirited out of Britain had the Soviet Union launched a nuclear attack, according to previously top-secret documents which will go on public view later this week. Written in 1965 in blue ink on the back of a brown envelope, the plan was to move the British monarch to a secret Cabinet bunker, than fly her out of the country, possibly to Canada, the Sunday Telegraph reported. The unsigned document is among a host of declassified Cold War intelligence papers to be exhibited by the National Archives in Kew, southwest London, from Friday through Aug. 14.
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