IN BRIEF (Page 11)

United Kingdom

Scandal model Rice-Davies dies

Mandy Rice-Davies, a key figure in Britain's biggest Cold War political scandal, the Profumo Affair, has died at the age of 70. A spokesman said on Friday that Rice-Davies died the previous evening "after a short battle with cancer". Rice-Davies was a model and London nightclub dancer when her friend Christine Keeler had an affair with War Secretary John Profumo. The revelation that Keeler had slept with both Profumo and a Soviet naval attache caused a media sensation and almost toppled the British government in 1963.

Spain

Car rams into ruling party HQ

Spanish police were searching for possible explosives at the headquarters of the ruling conservative Popular Party after a man rammed his car into the office entrance on Friday. There were no reports of injuries, and National Police spokesman Antonio Nevado told Spanish National Radio that the attack did not appear to be terrorism-related. The driver was arrested.

Syria

War injury toll reaches 1 million

One million people have been wounded during Syria's civil war and diseases are spreading as regular supplies of medicine fail to reach patients, the World Health Organization's Syria representative said. Contaminated water and a plunge in vaccination rates from 90 percent before the war to 52 percent this year have added to the woes, allowing typhoid and hepatitis to advance, Elizabeth Hoff said.

Russia

Lavrov attacks Ukraine draft

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday criticized a statement by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on ending Ukraine's neutral status as confrontational rhetoric. "The draft law to reject Ukraine's neutral status as well as the order from Petro Alexeyevich Poroshenko about the economic blockade of the southeast (Ukraine) is a tribute to the rhetoric that the party of war in Kiev thirsts after," Lavrov told a news conference.

Greece

Tomb mystery due to be solved

Details about the identity of a mystery skeleton found in a massive tomb dating from the era of Alexander the Great are to be revealed next month, the Greek culture ministry said on Friday. "The result of macroscopic study of the bone tissue (identifying) sex, age and height will be announced in January," the ministry said in a statement, adding that the research will be carried out by universities in Thessaloniki and Thrace.

Pakistan

Militants killed in army ambush

The Pakistani army killed 32 militants in an ambush in a remote valley near the Afghan border, the military said on Friday, three days after a Taliban massacre of children at a school. The ambush took place overnight in the northwestern Tirah valley in the Khyber agency, one of the main smuggling routes for arms and insurgents crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan. A further 27 militants were killed in other clashes.

Kuwait

Arabs jailed for supporting IS

A Kuwaiti court has jailed three Arab supporters of the Islamic State jihadist group, in a first for the Gulf emirate, newspapers reported on Friday. The court sentenced a Kuwaiti to 10 years in jail for urging support for the group and also for insulting Kuwait's ruler in public. An Egyptian and a Jordanian were handed four-year terms for helping him distribute pro-IS leaflets, local media reports said.

Vietnam

Rescuers free 12 from tunnel

Twelve people trapped in a collapsed tunnel were freed on Friday after a four-day ordeal that saw rescuers pass oxygen and food through a small hole while they pulled away debris, state media reported. The 11 men and one woman were in good health after being led from the tunnel, according to Vietnam Television. Part of the tunnel at the Da Dang-Da Chomo hydroelectric power plant in Lac Duong district in the Central Highlands collapsed early on Tuesday after heavy rain.

AP - Reuters - AFP

(China Daily 12/20/2014 page11)