■PAKISTAN
Gunmen kidnap Greek man
Gunmen kidnapped a Greek man who has lived in northern Pakistan since 1995. Police official Akbar Khan said the man in his 50s ran a welfare center and school catering to Kalash residents of Chitral district. About 30 masked gunmen invaded the building early on Tuesday and abducted him and a servant. They killed a guard during the encounter. No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
■AUSTRALIA
Pizza delivery goes wrong
A fast food delivery man tried to hold a four-year-old boy hostage in a row over a pizza supreme, media reported yesterday. The driver seized Darwin resident Lisa Paardekooper’s nephew, Cain Paardekooper, when she refused to pay for the pizza because it was more than an hour late, she told the Northern Territory News. “He said give me the pizza back or the money,” Lisa Paardekooper said. “He stuck his hand through the gate and grabbed Cain.” She said the driver let the boy go when she raised her fist.
■AUSTRALIA
Setback for teenage sailor
A teenager’s bid to become the youngest solo round-the-world sailor suffered a setback when she crashed just hours into a preliminary voyage yesterday. Jessica Watson, 16, was on a 10-day test journey when she hit a 63,000-tonne freighter in a busy shipping lane off the coast of Queensland state, snapping her pink yacht’s mast and damaging its rigging and hull. But Watson vowed the incident would not stop her attempt to become the youngest person to sail non-stop around the world, solo and unassisted, scheduled to start this month. Transport officials are investigating the incident, which came at 2:30am on Tuesday despite Watson making radio contact with the ship’s crew.
■AUSTRALIA
Ray Barrett passes on
Veteran actor Ray Barrett, who became a familiar figure on British television in the 1960s and most recently appeared in the big-budget movie Australia, has died at the age of 82. Barrett died in a hospital on the Gold Coast in the state of Queensland after falling at his home and suffering a brain hemorrhage, his agent said. Barrett studied music, elocution and acting before moving to England, where the craggy-faced actor became a star in the 1960s, appearing in a long list of shows. He was the voice of some characters in the popular children’s puppet series Thunderbirds and Stingray, starred in the show The Troubleshooters and appeared in Dr Who. He moved back to Australia in the mid-1970s, appearing in various TV shows over the years. His last major role was as the character Ramsden in Baz Luhrmann’s epic Australia released last year.
■SRI LANKA
UNICEF official loses visa
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized Sri Lanka on Tuesday for revoking the work visa of a spokesman for UNICEF whom Colombo accuses of spreading rebel propaganda. “The secretary-general strongly regrets the decision of the Sri Lankan government to expel Mr. James Elder,” UN spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters. He said Ban would raise the issue with President Mahinda Rajapaksa “at the earliest opportunity.” Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said on Monday that Elder’s visa had been revoked because he had spread Tamil Tiger propaganda. UNICEF denied the allegation.
■RUSSIA
Teens may face drug tests
President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday proposed setting up mandatory screening of teenagers to fight drug addiction, which he called a threat to national security. “Experts estimate the actual number of drug users to be between 2 and 2.5 million people. That’s nearly 2 percent of Russian citizens,” local news agencies reported Medvedev as saying during a national security council meeting in Kremlin.
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