World Briefs

An international team of scientists yesterday announced the discovery in northern Colombia of fossil remains of the largest snake ever known to have lived. It is named Titanoboa cerrejonensis, meaning titanic boa from Cerrejon, the open-pit coal mine where its fossils were found.

Titanoboa was at least 13 metres long, weighed 1,140 kg and its massive body was at least one metre wide, they wrote in the journal Nature. It lived 58 to 60 million years ago, when earth's animal kingdom was still recovering from the mass extinction that doomed the dinosaurs and many other creatures 65 million years ago when an asteroid hit near the Yucatan coast of Mexico. It may have been the largest non-ocean vertebrate then on earth.

"It is a mind-bogglingly big snake," paleontologist Jason Head of the University of Toronto Mississauga, one of the scientists, said in a telephone interview.

Tea, yawns at summit

Aided by a steaming pot of tea, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi addressed tiring and watch-tapping African leaders into the early hours of yesterday as their annual meeting in Ethiopia dragged into extra time.

While none of their words could be heard, a small security lapse gave some prying reporters a fascinating look at the body language of Robert Mugabe, Yoweri Museveni and dozens of others as they debated through the night.

With the Libyan appearing unusually animated, his counterparts became visibly more and more tired. Zimbabwe's Mugabe, sitting just a few feet from the window, looked especially dejected, often holding his head in his hands. Uganda's Museveni stared stonily ahead.

Ukraine's leaders fight over Soviet symbol

Ukraine's feuding President and Prime Minister, both proponents of pro-Western ideas, have squared off in a new dispute over a quintessential symbol of Soviet times - the Artek pioneer camp.

Artek, founded in 1925, was lionised for decades as a hothouse for internationalism, a gathering place on the Black Sea for children of all races, each donning the red scarf of Soviet pioneers, to debate happily how to further world peace. The camp hosted more than 20,000 children a year in the Crimea peninsula - prime, lush and now very sought after resort land in what was once the summer playground of the Soviet elite.

But Artek, nestled beneath a volcanic outcropping known as "Bear Mountain", has fallen on hard times and faces closure, triggering a row between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Their alliance from the 2004 "Orange Revolution" long dissolved, each have blamed the other for the camp's predicament.

Mr Yushchenko gave the Prime Minister a week to "deal with and report back" on the problems plaguing Artek. Ms Tymoshenko announced after a weekend Cabinet meeting devoted solely to the camp that she had ensured Artek's survival by allocating the equivalent of $7.8 million (€6.07 million) to its operations.

99-year-old on trial for swindling

A 99-year-old Chinese man has gone on trial in Beijing accused of swindling some 750,000 yuan (€84,359) from an American, the oldest criminal defendant ever in the city, domestic media said yesterday.

Zhou Zhiping, born in 1910, claimed to be a former provincial governor during the Nationalists' rule of China, which ended when the Communists took power in 1949, the Beijing News said.

Mr Zhou said he had close connections with government leaders and could help with the unfreezing of assets of the former Nationalists held in the US, the report said, without elaborating.

Due to his age, Zhou was released on bail. The prosecutor also did his questioning at Zhou's house rather than the court, the newspaper added.

BBC drops Thatcher over 'golliwog' slur

The BBC has axed Carol Thatcher as a reporter on one of its shows after she referred to a tennis player as a "golliwog" in off-air remarks, a spokesman said yesterday.

Ms Thatcher, 55, was reported to bosses by fellow presenters and guests for making the comment during the making of The One Show, sparking yet another row at the broadcaster.

A BBC spokesman said the comment about the unnamed player was made in front of presenters and celebrity guests after the show was broadcast last Thursday night.

"There was a discussion about the Australian Open in the green room, and when Carol was discussing it she referred to one of the black tennis players as a golliwog," said a BBC spokesman. "There was some suggestion this morning that it was (British player) Andy Murray she was referring to. It was not."

He said Ms Thatcher, daughter of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was challenged directly at the time by one of the guests, comedian Jo Brand, and members of the production staff later complained to the show's producer.

Ms Thatcher will continue to contribute to other shows in the future and her contract has not been terminated, the BBC said.

Jailed for taking €0.40 24 years ago

An Indian court sentenced a 75-year-old doctor to jail for accepting half a dollar as bribe nearly a quarter of a century ago, officials said yesterday.

India's federal police caught Balgovind Prasad accepting 25 rupees (€0.395) from a sweeper in 1985 for issuing a fake medical certificate, police said.

The case dragged on for years and Mr Prasad was convicted in 1992 and given a one-year jail term. He was freed as he appealed the sentence.

On Tuesday, a higher court in India's eastern state of Bihar state reduced the one-year term to three months, saying the bribe amount was too small, but directed the police to take Mr Prasad into custody as he was guilty of the crime.

Indian justice is often delivered at a glacial pace and a case can drag for decades with endless hearings.