The Intelsat-10 satellite, when in orbit around the Earth, will be used to provide live television broadcasting, telephone communications and Internet connections to Intelsat's customers in South America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
■ United States
Cow manure pollutes
Air quality regulators are proposing what they say would be the first attempt in America to regulate smog-forming emissions from cow manure. Cows in southern California dairies, especially around the farm community of Chino, produce 1 million tonnes of manure every year, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which is proposing the new rules. As it decomposes, the manure releases more than 20 tonnes of pollutants daily -- mostly ammonia -- and combines with pollution blown downwind from Los Angeles and Orange counties, aggravating Southern California's worst-in-the-nation smog problem.
■ Portugal
Irishman steals ambulance
An Irish man was to appear in court in southern Portugal on Wednesday after he stole an ambulance and briefly drove it while drunk, police said. Paramedics left their keys in the ignition of the ambulance while they attended to a patient in a house in Portimao, 250km south of Lisbon, police spokesman Alexandre Coimbra said. The Irish man then made off with the ambulance but was stopped by police after having driven just 200m, he added. No one was hurt in the incident. The man was found to have 2.8 grams of alcohol per liter in his blood, far in excess of the national drink-drive limit of 0.5 grams. He was charged with automobile theft and drink driving, Coimbra said.
■ Zimbabwe
Mugabe admits HIV in family
The Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, admitted for the first time on Wednesday that members of his family had been affected by HIV/Aids. Mugabe told a conference on Aids that unnamed members of his family had become ill from the disease. Describing HIV/Aids as "one of the greatest challenges facing our nation," he said that most people had been affected "and that includes the extended family of the president himself." The admission came after years of official neglect of a virus that has infected almost a quarter of adults in Zimbabwe, one of the highest prevalence rates in the world. Last year, 1.8 million Zimbabweans were infected and a recent survey found that 51 percent of prisoners were HIV-positive.
■ Congo
Refugees escape to Burundi
More than 22,000 refugees have fled into neighboring Burundi to escape heightened tensions in eastern Congo, officials said, after weeks of strife between loyalists and former rebels that have rattled the peace process in Africa's third-largest nation. UN investigators gave their first detailed accounts Wednesday of the violence, saying doctors registered 143 civilian casualties -- including 66 dead -- in a takeover of the eastern city of Bukavu by renegade ex-rebel military forces that sparked the fighting.
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