■ Saudi Arabia
Al-Qaeda urges attacks
The Saudi branch of the Al-Qaeda network called on its fighters to attack foreign targets and oil sites in the world's top crude exporting nation, according to a statement posted on an Islamist Internet sit yesterday. The message, whose authenticity could not be verified, appeared after Al-Qaeda chef Osama bin Laden issued a call to his fighters to strike oil targets in Iraq and the Gulf, according to an audiotape purportedly from him broadcast last week. "We call on all the mujahidin to target the sources of oil which do not serve the Islamic nation but serve the enemies of the nation," said the Web site statement attributed to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Arabian Peninsula and dated Saturday.
■ Spain
Bomb suspects in Madrid
Four suspected Islamic militants arrested in the Canary Islands arrived in Madrid on Saturday under heavy guard, an official said. One of the four suspects -- Hassan al Haski, 41 -- is believed to have played a role in the March 11 Madrid train bombings, an attack that killed 191 people, the Interior Ministry said on Friday. The four suspects are Moroccans. They were flown Saturday to a Spanish air force base on a plane with more than 50 guards, an anti-terrorism police spokesman said.
■ United States
Gold coins puzzle charity
Salvation Army officials don't know who has been dropping gold coins into their holiday kettles over the past 20 years, but they hope the mysterious donations continue. More than 300 gold coins have been collected since the early 1980s, with an average value of about US$200 each, said Cliff Marshall, spokesman for the charity in Chicago, where the tradition began. Chicago bell-ringers have brought in 10 gold coins so far this year. They aren't the only ones. In Kirksville, Missouri, someone donated a gold coin that was minted 20 years before the Civil War, worth nearly US$1,000, and a US$400 South African Kruggerand was dropped in a kettle in Bloomington, Indiana.
■ United States
Book says Lincoln was gay
Was Abraham Lincoln, founder of the party now seeking a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in America, actually gay himself? A new book, published next month, thinks so. The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln by C.A. Tripp produces evidence that one of the US' greatest presidents had a long-term relationship with a friend, Joshua Speed, and shared his bed with David Derickson, captain of his bodyguards. Tripp's book breaks new ground in its portrayal of many of Lincoln's possible gay lovers, including one man who said Lincoln's thighs "were as perfect as a human being could be."
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