World Briefs

Trying to solve the Middle East crisis has turned the hair of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair grey, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchechr Mottaki said yesterday.

"During his time in office his hair was not so grey. It shows that his stance on the Middle East is serious," Mr Mottaki said of Mr Blair during a panel before the World Economic Forum.

Mr Blair laughed at the jibe, saying he wanted to hear Mr Mottaki accept a "two state" solution between Israel and the Palestinians if he wasn't to lose the "remaining hairs that aren't grey".

"If people heard you accept in principle two states, it would keep my hair brown," he said.

Mr Mottaki declined to bite, saying: "We do not have the right to make decisions on behalf of the Palestinians."

The former British Prime Minister is the envoy for the quartet of Middle East peace negotiators - the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.

Fire station burns after cooking mishap

A blaze broke out at a fire station in Japan this week after a firefighter left a cooking stove burning as crew members left the station to respond to emergency calls.

Most of the duty staffers were out on a call when their colleague, alone at the station and cooking dinner for the crew, was himself called out.

In his haste to respond to the call, he forgot to turn the stove off, said Seiji Hori, a Nagoya City Fire Department official. Ten fire trucks from other stations put out the fire, Mr Hori added.

"We are an institute that should be in a position to educate people about fire, so we are extremely sorry that such an incident happened," Mr Hori said, adding that they would consider ordering-in for dinner from now on.

Singer John Martyn dies, aged 60

British singer-songwriter John Martyn, who played alongside Phil Collins and Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, has died aged 60, his publicist said yesterday.

The jazz and folk-influenced musician was known for his virtuoso guitar playing and drawling vocals.

No further details about his death were immediately available.

Mr Martyn released a series of critically acclaimed albums but always remained on the fringes of the mainstream music scene.

"I don't think of myself as anything, I just lurch along from one thing to another," he said in a 1993 interview. He was born in Surrey and grew up in Scotland where he learned folk guitar. Among his best known albums were "Solid Air" and "One World", both in the 1970s.

Mr Collins and Mr Gilmour played on his 1993 compilation No Little Boy, while Eric Clapton covered his song May You Never.

Protesters storm Putin's party office

Three activists stormed an office of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's political party in St Petersburg yesterday to accuse him of ignoring the plight of ordinary people in the economic slowdown.

Two members of the banned National Bolshevik Party handcuffed themselves to a radiator while another set off fireworks, closing a United Russia office in Russia's second city for 30 minutes, a party official said. The protesters demanded the government stop spending billions of dollars to bail out "banks and oligarchs" and instead freeze tariffs for electricity and public transport, National Bolshevik official Andrei Dmitriyev said.

"We demanded a meeting with Putin," he said. "I have no doubt that our demands will be put on Putin's desk."

Police detained all protesters.

Underground to cut jobs

London Underground plans to axe 1,000 jobs but the cuts will not affect passenger services, Transport for London said yesterday.

The staff reduction is aimed at making the "tube" network more efficient and is not linked to the recession, the body that runs the capital's transport system said.

"Frontline operations including train, station and maintenance staff are not part of the review and will be unaffected by any changes," Transport for London said in a statement.

London Underground employs around 20,000 people.

A Transport for London spokesman said the job cuts would mainly affect backroom roles such as finance, procurement, human resources and administration.

He said the organisation hoped to avoid compulsory redundancies. It would seek to achieve the figure by reducing temporary positions, by not filling vacancies and by voluntary redundancies.