■ Italy
Judge has custody coin toss
When the separated parents of a five-year old Italian boy could not agree whose house he should stay at over Christmas, a judge settled the dispute by tossing a coin, an Italian newspaper reported on Thursday. The squabbling couple took their argument to a family disputes court a few days before Christmas and were surprised when the judge, who said there was not enough time to convene the tribunal, tossed a two-euro coin for "heads-or-tails." "I did it in the interest of the child," Judge Carlo Alberto Agnoli was quoted as saying in Italy's leading daily newspaper Corriere della Sera. "I certainly couldn't do like Solomon and divide the child. So I trusted to luck," said the judge who presides at a court in the northeastern town of Trento.
■ Greece
Attache's guard shot
A Greek police officer standing guard outside the private home of Britain's military attache to Greece was found shot dead in northern Athens early Friday, police said. The body of the officer, 32-year-old member of Greece's Special Guard Force Haralabos Amanatidis, was discovered around 3:15am. According to first findings, the guard was shot down with eight or nine bullets from a machine gun fired by an unknown number of assailants who had approached him. The attackers removed the victim's automatic machine gun and escaped, Brigadier Vassilis Tsiatouras, security police chief of the greater Athens area, told reporters. British diplomats and companies have been the target of extremist attacks in Greece in the past -- notably in 2000 when London's previous military attache to Athens Stephen Saunders was killed by dismantled extremist group November 17. ? is a criminal act. Its circumstances and motives are under investigation,?siatouras said.
■ Mexico
Blackout affects flights
Six flights were diverted from Mexico City airport when a power failure cut runway lighting for about 45 minutes on Thursday night, airport authorities said. All landings and takeoffs were suspended during the runway blackout, starting at about 9:45pm, a spokesman said. Two flights were diverted to Acapulco International Airport, on the Pacific coast 290km south-southwest of Mexico City; two flights to Morelia, 215km west of Mexico City; and two more to Bajio airport in Guanajuato state, 275km northwest of the Mexican capital. Electricity and lighting elsewhere at the airport were not affected.
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