■ Northern Ireland
Digger drives into pub
Northern Irish Protestant paramilitaries were blamed Friday for driving a mechanical digger through the front of a Belfast pub frequented by Catholics. None of the pub's staff or customers were hurt. The digger smashed through the front of the Thirty Two Degrees North pub on the city's Crumlin Road shortly after midnight, smashing windows and causing structural damage. Its bucket was reported to be packed with slates and burning wood. Margaret McClenaghan, a councillor for the Irish republican party Sinn Fein, said Protestant loyalists were behind the incident.
■ South Africa
Huge drug bust in Durban
A massive haul of drugs worth nearly US$100 million has been found aboard a boat from Hong Kong by South African police, a radio report said yesterday. Six tons of methaqualone, used for making the highly addictive synthetic drug Mandrax, was reportedly discovered by officials in the port of Durban after a tip-off from Hong Kong police. The station said police in South Africa were linking the haul to a series of drug seizures over the past month. It is not known if anyone was arrested in connection with Thursday's operation.
■ Germany
Cannibal story sold for TV
Already the subject of a hit rock song and a film script, Germany's convicted cannibal is now destined for the small screen as the star of a television documentary, its producer said Friday. Armin Meiwes, who was jailed in January for more than eight years for killing and eating the flesh of a willing victim, has signed over the media rights to his case to the Hamburg-based production firm Stampfwerk. Managing director Guenter Stampf said the documentary would "come to terms with an unusual criminal case." Stampf said he had negotiated for nine months with Meiwes and his attorney Harald Ermel before winning their agreement to give Stampfwerk "the exclusive rights to the journalistic treatment of the case." He declined to say how much Meiwes would be paid.
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