World briefs

Gunmen shot and killed 11 people, including women and children still in bed, in the small village of Lusignan in Guyana early yesterday, state television reported.

The massacre came hours after gunmen attacked police headquarters in the capital, Georgetown. The television described the attackers as fugitive criminals.

President Bharrat Jagdeo met with security officials to discuss the situation and called on citizens to remain calm and not take retaliatory actions.

The government sent police and troops to restore order in Lusignan, 18 km east of Georgetown, where furious residents blocked the main highway with burning debris.

Attacks planned across Europe

Islamist extremists were planning attacks across Europe, especially against public transport, before their arrests in Barcelona last weekend, a Spanish paper reported yesterday, citing a would-be attacker's testimony.

The Al Qaeda-inspired cell planned to attack the Barcelona metro and other targets in Spain, Germany, France, Portugal and the UK, said the bomber-turned-police-informant.

In testimony that led to the arrest of 14 South Asians yesterday week, the informant told police the group had a preference for attacks on public transport, especially metro systems, El Pais newspaper reported.

"If we attack the metro, the emergency services can't get there," the informant said he was told by a fellow suicide bomber, El Pais reported.

Two pairs with explosive-filled bags were to enter separate Barcelona subway stations and other members of the group were to detonate their bombs by remote control, said the witness.

Prisoners demand payout

A group of Sudanese released from the US prison in Guantanamo Bay demanded cash payouts and an apology from the United States yesterday, for mental and physical torture suffered during years spent in jail there.

"We have asked for compensation and an apology," aid worker Adil Hassan Hamad told a conference in Khartoum, which was organised by local rights groups to demand the release of seven Sudanese still held at Guantanamo Bay.

Hamad, freed just over one month ago, wore orange overalls like those worn by detainees in the US prison camp. He was working with refugees when arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and taken to Afghanistan and then the US camp in Cuba.

Many attending the Khartoum conference broke down in tears when addressed by the wife of Al Jazeera journalist Sami al-Hajj, the most high-profile of the around 300 detainees still in the prison on the Caribbean island.

He has been on a hunger strike for 400 days but is force-fed twice a day in a manner his lawyer told the conference was tantamount to torture.

Singing complaints cancelled

A choir that planned to sing a list of complaints about life in Singapore cancelled its performances after the city-state banned its foreign members from singing, organisers said yesterday.

The 60-member 'complaints choir', a concept that originated from two Finnish artists, was scheduled to perform at a weekend festival but authorities granted a performance licence on the condition that the foreigners would not participate.

Singapore's media development authority said the licence was conditional because the lyrics touched on 'domestic affairs' and it preferred that only Singaporeans take part.

Some of the complaints that would have been sung included 'when a pregnant lady gets on the train, everyone pretends to sleep' and 'when I'm hungry at the food court, I see people (reserve) seats with tissue paper'.

Mouse head served on plate

A hospital patient in Finland found a mouse head among the steamed vegetables on his plate.

"Understandably, he lost his appetite," said Sakari Kela, chief administrator at the Northern Karelia central hospital.

The health of the patient in Joensuu, eastern Finland, had not been compromised by the dead rodent, Kela said yesterday.

The severed head most likely originated in a bag of Belgian vegetables. The body has not been found and being "a Belgian mouse, the rest of it could be anywhere in Europe," Kela said.

US court upholds hefty sentence

A prison sentence of more than 24 years is not excessive for a man who used the Internet to seduce an FBI agent who portrayed herself as a 14-year-old girl, a US appeals court ruled.

Paris Cherer was sentenced to 293 months in prison for attempting to persuade a minor to engage in sexual acts in 2005. He was 35 years old at the time.

Cherer appealed the punishment as unreasonably long, but the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. A three-judge panel noted Cherer was convicted in 2001 of lewdness with a child under 14.