World Briefs

A hapless thief drilled his way into a French bank at the weekend, but missed the safe and instead found himself in a lavatory where he was promptly arrested, a French newspaper reported yesterday.

The 21-year-old broke into a building adjoining a branch of Banque Populaire in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille in the early hours of Saturday morning, La Provence newspaper said.

The man who came from Belgium and was not named, thought that he was going to end up in a room housing safe deposit boxes .

Obama's Kenyan half-brother detained

A Kenyan half brother of US President Barack Obama said yesterday he was briefly arrested at his home in a slum on suspicion of drugs' possession. "I think it was a misunderstanding. I do not do drugs," George Hussein Obama, 27, said from Nairobi's Huruma slum, where he was picked up for a few hours on Saturday. "They released me with no charge."

Local media quoted police saying Mr Obama, who works as a mechanic, had been found with two rolls of marijuana. Kenya's leading newspaper, the Nation, said he would be charged in court today.

But Mr Obama said that was untrue, and police officials refused to comment. George Obama hardly knows his brother, the first black President of the United States, who is hero-worshipped in Kenya due to his ancestral roots.

During the US election campaign, some right-wing US commentators said the lowly circumstances of George Obama showed Barack Obama's double standards. But George Obama said at the time he was happy with his life and his case had been exaggerated for political ends.

In his memoirs, Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama recalls meeting George Obama briefly on a visit to Kenya when the latter was a boy at a school in Nairobi.

Jailed milk-scandal chief appeals

The former chairman of the Sanlu Group, jailed for life over China's melamine-tainted milk scandal in which at least six children died, has appealed against her sentence, state media said.

Tian Wenhua says her trial lacked evidence, Xinhua news agency quoted her lawyer as saying.

Ms Tian was convicted last year at Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court of manufacturing and selling fake or substandard products. She was sentenced to life last month and fined 24.7 million yuan ($3.6 million).

Two men were sentenced to death and three former Sanlu executives received jail terms of five to 15 years.

The court ruled Ms Tian authorised the sale of products that contained 10 mg of melamine in every one kilo of milk, Xinhua said.

Nearly 300,000 children fell ill last year after drinking milk laced with melamine, a toxic industrial compound that can give a fake positive on protein tests.

Gay premier for Iceland

Iceland's new Prime Minister will be former Social Affairs Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, parties forming a new coalition for the crisis-hit island decided yesterday.

Social Democrat Sigurdardottir will be joined by new Finance Minister Steingrimur Sigfusson, leader of coalition partner the Left-Green Party, the parties told journalists.

The new agreement will give the the country its first female Prime Minister and the world its first openly gay leader.

Italy seeks help for guerilla extradition

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has urged the European Union to intervene to help Italy obtain the extradition of guerilla Cesare Battisti from Brazil.

Mr Frattini said in an interview published yesterday in the Il Giornale daily that the EU may be justified in legal terms in saying it has no responsibility for extradition issues, as it has so far, "but the question is political".

"This time it is happening to us, but if tomorrow Brazil or Indonesia refused to extradite a Baader Meinhof terrorist to Germany, how should we behave?" he asked.

Mr Battisti, 54, was jailed for murder in Italy in the 1970s when he was a member of the group "Armed Proletarians for Communism".

He escaped in 1981 and fled to France, but went on the run again when Paris approved his extradition in 2006 and was caught in Brazil.

Brazil decided last month to give the Italian political 'activist' refugee status, sparking diplomatic protests from Italy, which calls him a "terrorist". Mr Battisti was convicted of two murders before his jailbreak and faces two more murder charges.

Italy has appealed to Brazil's supreme court, which must now decide on the case.