■ RUSSIA
Natural wonder destroyed
A severe landslide has nearly obliterated one of the country's most noted natural wonders, the Valley of Geysers, officials said on Monday. The valley in the Kronotsky national reserve on the Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula -- famed for its volcanoes -- contained about 90 geysers, as well as an array of thermal pools, and is the region's most popular tourist attraction. A snow-covered mound collapsed on Sunday and caused a massive landslide, about 1.5km long and 180m wide, that buried two thirds of the valley, a park ranger said. The landslide destroyed most of the valley's geysers and dozens of thermal springs stopping meters away from the valley's only hotel.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Anti-binging campaign
The government was expected to unveil a new alcohol strategy yesterday expected to focus on how to counter binge-drinking by changing young people's attitudes and behavior. At the heart of the approach, being unveiled by Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker, is expected to be the ambitious aim of changing the nation's drinking culture and views on drunkenness. It is also expected to announce plans to clamp down on those selling alcohol to underage children. The groups to be targeted are the under 18s, binge drinkers aged 18 to 24, and older drinkers unaware of the damage caused by their behavior.
■ ITALY
Vatican officials acquitted
A Rome appeals court acquitted a Vatican cardinal and another top churchman on Monday of environmental pollution involving a Vatican Radio transmission tower, a lawyer for the defendants said. In 2005, a lower court had convicted Cardinal Roberto Tucci, formerly head of Vatican Radio management committee, and the Reverend Pasquale Borgomeo, formerly the radio's director general, of polluting the environment because of electromagnetic wave emissions that had allegedly violated environmental limits. The appeals court ruled that Italy's penal code did not include electromagnetic waves under the charge -- dangerous "throwing of objects."
■ ALGERIA
New government appointed
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika named a new government on Monday after last month's parliamentary elections, retaining Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem despite the record low voter turnout but naming a new foreign minister, Mourad Medelci, the former minister of finance. Mohamed Bedjaoui's ouster from the post of foreign minister was the only major change among key ministries. It was not immediately clear why he lost his job. The Cabinet had resigned on Friday in an expected move.
■ GERMANY
Ostrich sex claim case ends
Three teenagers were spared paying hefty damages after a court said an ostrich farmer had failed to prove his claim that the youths' noisy firecrackers made one of his birds impotent. The court in Bautzen on Monday ordered the three teens to pay only 140 euros (US$188) in vet costs for the ostrich, Gustav. Rico Gabel had claimed 5,000 euros in damages for the alleged antics on December 2005. He claimed that fireworks set off by the boys made the previously lustful Gustav apathetic and depressed, and thus unable to perform for half a year with his two partners.
■ MEXICO
Illegal immigrants die
Six Central Americans who were headed to the US illegally were crushed to death when dozens of other illegal immigrants and crates of bananas collapsed on them inside a truck in the south. A wooden platform holding up some 100 people squeezed into the top half of the truck gave way on Sunday and landed on those huddled underneath in the southern state of Oaxaca, media reported. Ten others were injured. "I just heard a crunch and the people at the top landed on top of us," Salvadoran survivor Nelson Garcia, 35, told the daily Reforma.
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