World Highlights

o Nine pupils at a school in Germany were taken to hospital after a suspected gas attack, police in the western city of Trier said yesterday. "We suspect it was some kind of attack with an irritant gas," said police spokesman Reinhard Rothgerber. Police said around 30 pupils at the vocational school in Trier were treated on site for irritation to their eyes and throats, or sensations of nausea and dizziness, after a smell was detected in the building's entrance hall.

o The crash of an Air France jet in Toronto on August 2 does not appear to have been caused by problems with the Airbus A340 itself, Canada's Transport Safety Board said yesterday. All 309 people on board survived the crash in which the plane ran off the end of the runway as it landed during a severe thunderstorm.

o An entire Alpine valley shut down its shops and schools yesterday so thousands of residents could march against plans to build a high-speed train line past their villages to link Italy and France. Police estimated about 20,000 people, from schoolchildren to pensioners, marched the eight-kilometre route, waving white flags, singing along as brass bands played local folk songs and dancing by trucks blaring rap music with environmentalist lyrics.

o France's Senate yesterday approved a draft law on extending emergency powers by three months to tackle the worst civil unrest in almost 40 years, completing the Bill's passage through Parliament. The government decided to extend anti-riot powers such as curfews as a precautionary move, despite a sharp fall in violence by youths in poor suburbs angered by high unemployment, racism and a sense of exclusion from mainstream French society.

o Britain yesterday said it had agreed to extradite computer expert Babar Ahmad wanted by the US to face terrorism charges, but the man's family vowed to take the case to court to have the decision overthrown.