World Briefs

London police arrested 78 people in what they said was a largely good natured New Year's Eve celebration in the capital.

Huge crowds lined the banks of the River Thames on Wednesday night to usher in the New Year and watch a spectacular fireworks display. Revellers hugged each other and popped champagne corks as Big Ben struck midnight.

Police said the 3,300 officers on duty in the capital arrested 78 people, including 18 for assault, 39 for public order offences and 10 for being drunk and disorderly.

"The nature of New Year's Eve in central London has changed. From what used to be a relatively low-key spontaneous night is now a world-class event that attracts thousands and thousands of people," said police Superintendent Brian Pearce.

About 140,000 people flocked to central Edinburgh to celebrate Hogmanay with a huge street party of songs, dancing and fireworks.

New Year's Eve car burnings up

At least 445 cars were torched over the night of New Year's Eve in France, a 20 per cent rise on last year, the Interior Ministry and police said yesterday.

Car burnings are regular occurrences in France but the registering of the New Year's Eve total has become something of a tradition since they achieved symbolic status in the violent rioting that shook many of the country's poor suburbs in 2005.

An Interior Ministry official said that as of 6.00 a.m. (0500 GMT), 445 car burnings had been registered, against 372 at the same time a year before and police had made 288 arrests, compared with 259 on December 31 in 2007.

There were around 50 burnings in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where police made 17 arrests, including four people caught while setting fire to cars.

In Toulouse, 12 cars were burned in areas at the edge of the city limits, while in Nantes, around 10 cars were torched although police in the western city said New Year's Eve had been "pretty calm".

Japan deaths at record high

Japan was expected to chalk up a record-high number of deaths in 2008, a government report showed yesterday, underlining the unprecedented pace at which the ageing country's population is shrinking.

The health ministry report, based on preliminary figures of births and deaths registered at Japanese municipal offices, estimated there were 51,000 more deaths than births in 2008.

The number of deaths rose an estimated 35,000 to 1,143,000, the highest since data started to be compiled in 1947, the report said.

The number of babies born last year was likely to have risen by 2,000 from a year earlier to 1,092,000 - 2008 was a leap year with an extra day in February - the report showed.

"We are apparently seeing the arrival of a society with a shrinking population," Kyodo News Agency quoted the health ministry as saying.

Anti-apartheid Suzman dies

Helen Suzman, one of South Africa's foremost anti-apartheid campaigners, died yesterday aged 91.

Ms Suzman was for 36 years South Africa's most famous white crusader against apartheid, waging an often lonely and fierce parliamentary battle to enfranchise the black majority. She became one of the few whites to earn respect from black South Africans when she started making regular visits to see jailed black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation said South Africa had lost a "great patriot and a fearless fighter against apartheid".

Ms Suzman was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice and won praise from human rights organisations from around the world.

Poison shrub oil for airline flight

Oil from the seeds of a poisonous shrub helped power a New Zealand airliner in a test flight, at a time when airlines hit by high oil prices and pressured over the impact of planes on the environment seek greener fuels.

An Air New Zealand Boeing 747 flew for two hours on December 30 with one of its four engines powered by a 50-50 mixture of jet fuel and jatropha oil.

Jatropha is a plant that produces inedible fruits, which contain the oil. It is grown on arid and marginal land in India, parts of Africa and other countries, and has been touted for mass production for biofuels because it does not compete for resources with food crops.

Scots welcome Burns anniversary

Revellers across Scotland gave a warm New Year's welcome to the country's official "homecoming year" and celebration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of its most famous poet, Robert Burns, yesterday.

Scotland's devolved nationalist government has declared 2009 to be Homecoming Year to attract visits and support from the Scottish diaspora it estimates around 100 million people worldwide.

It is twinning the homecoming with the anniversary of Burns' birth in Ayrshire on January 25, 1759.

About 140,000 people flocked to Edinburgh on Wednesday night, to celebrate Hogmanay with a mass rendition of Auld Lang Syne, the iconic song of fellowship Burns wrote in 1788, eight years before his early death.