■ Egypt
Weapons claims dispelled
The UN nuclear agency said on Monday that Egypt was guilty of repeated failures to report nuclear activities but downplayed any suggestion this could be related to secret atomic weapons development, in a confidential report obtained by reporters. The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also found traces of plutonium, a potential atomic weapons material, in "hot cells" used to handle radioactive material, the report said, with Egypt saying this was due to contamination rather than plutonium production. The report said Egypt's failures to comply with international nuclear safeguards agreements, including not reporting the building of a plutonium reprocessing facility, were "a matter of concern" but that Cairo was now cooperating and had claimed it had erred as it had not understood its reporting obligations. The Egypt report will be submitted to a meeting that opens in Vienna on Feb. 28 of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors.
■ Denmark
Commuter trains collide
At least 50 people were injured, although none seriously, when two commuter trains collided on Monday at Lygnby, just north of Copenhagen, police said. Half of those injured would likely remain in hospital, but police revised earlier reports that two people were seriously injured, the Danish news agency Ritzau said. An investigation into the accident has been launched, said Henry Greve Petersen, head of railway security at the Danish State Railways. He would not speculate on the cause of the accident when a south-bound commuter train collided with another commuter train that was at the station. There were some 100 passengers on the two trains. The accident caused delays in train services, and buses were used on some destinations. Police eased road blocks erected on a nearby highway after ambulances ferried injured passengers to nearby hospitals.
■ United States
Teacher to wed former pupil
Mary Kay Letourneau plans to marry the former sixth-grade pupil with whom she had two children, months after her release from prison for raping him, according to an online bridal registry. Letourneau, 43, and Vili Fualaau, 22, set a wedding date of April 16, according to their registry at a department store. Letourneau served more than seven years on a 1997 conviction for raping Fualaau, who has said in the past that he hoped to wed his former teacher. "It's been long overdue," Noel Soriano, a friend of the couple, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in a story published on Monday. "It's going to be fabulous, seeing them get hitched finally." Letourneau was a 34-year-old married mother of four when she began a sexual relationship with her then-12-year-old elementary school student in 1996.
■ United States
Missile defense test fails
A US missile defense test failed on Monday when an interceptor missile was unable to launch, the Pentagon said. Military officials were investigating the cause of the failure, and initial suspicion focused on faulty ground support equipment, not the interceptor itself, at the site on the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said. It was the second setback for the system in three months. In December, the target missile failed to launch.
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