■ Russia
Putin cool on reform
Foreign pressure for reform in states of the former Soviet Union risks turning them into chaotic "banana republics," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in comments published yesterday. He said Western governments may have been mistaken in backing non-governmental organizations pushing for change during last year's "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine. "We are not against any changes in the former Soviet Union," Putin was quoted as saying by Britain's Times daily. "We are afraid only that those changes will be chaotic. Otherwise there will be banana republics where he who shouts loudest wins."
■ United Kingdom
Pig with a plot
A housing developer in Britain is offering a live pig as a pet to anyone who purchases a property from him, a spokeswoman said on Monday, adding that the unusual offer had already attracted two buyers. The rare Gloucester Old Spot pig will be fully house-trained before it is delivered to its new family. Those who do not fancy getting trotter marks on their carpets can opt to have their pig kept on a farm and turned into pork chops or rashers of bacon. Developer Jeremy Paxton promised to give a pig to anyone investing in a home on the exclusive Lower Mill estate, near Cirencester, Gloucestershire, southwest England.
■ Austria
Cable-car probe starts
Experts started an investigation yesterday into the cause of a cable-car accident the previous day in the mountainous Tirol region that killed members of a German ski group, including six children. The investigation was concentrating on the holding device of a transport helicopter that was carrying a 750kg slab of concrete to a lift station at the top of a mountain, Austria's ORF television reported. The device opened, sending the concrete slab crashing onto a gondola carrying German tourists from a height of 200m, sending the car falling at least 50m. The vibrations on the line caused a neighboring gondola to swing violently, throwing a total of six people of out the windows to their deaths.
■ Russia
Chernobyl not so serious
The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl almost 20 years ago has claimed fewer than 50 lives, according to a study by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN Development Program and the World Health Organization. But about 4,000 people could eventually die from exposure to radiation released when a reactor caught fire in the Ukrainian forest. "By and large ... we have not found profound negative health impacts to the rest of the population in surrounding areas, nor widespread contamination," Chernobyl Forum chairman Burton Bennett said.
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