World Briefs

Italian film director Dino Risi, who chronicled the bittersweet and lighter side of Italy's post-war economic boom, died yesterday, the residence where he lived said.

Risi, who was 91, was known as one of the masters of the commedia all'Italiana (Italian comedy). He had been ill for some time and died in a Rome residence where had lived for years.

Among his most famous films were Poveri ma belli (Poor Girl, Pretty Girl) and Il sorpasso (The Easy Life).

His 1974 film Profumo di donna (Scent of a Woman), won two Oscar nominations.

Risi was born in Milan in 1916 and worked with directors including Mario Soldati, Alberto Lattuada and Mario Monicelli before directing his own films.

He was one of the directors who helped advance the careers of stars such as Sophia Loren and the late Vittorio Gassman.

Tiger kills zookeeper

A tiger at a Japanese zoo attacked and killed a zookeeper who had gone to clean its cage yesterday, officials and local media said.

The 40-year-old zookeeper, Atsushi Ito, was discovered by a zoo visitor, who then ran to the zoo's office to raise the alarm.

"When we found him, he was lying in the tiger's bedroom. There was blood on the ground," Toshiaki Yamamoto, an official at the Kyoto City Zoo, said. "It seems like he was bitten, then dragged around the room."

Yamamoto said that the zoo did not know the size and weight of the 11-year-old male Siberian tiger, which is rented out to Kyoto City Zoo from a zoo in Tokyo for mating. But the tiger had never been involved this type of incident in the past, he added.

The zoo was closed for the rest of the day.

Czech PM says government could collapse soon

The Czech Republic's centre-right ruling coalition may collapse in autumn, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said yesterday in the Mlada Fronta newspaper.

The coalition has struggled to pursue its plans to overhaul public services and cut what it sees as wasteful state spending since it took power in 2006. "The coalition is shaken," Topolanek told the paper.

"If there is not a catharsis that would lead to the confirmation of a majority this summer, then autumn could mean the fall of the government."

With just 100 of parliament's 200 seats, it has depended on two independents to push through some laws, but several coalition deputies have increasingly broken party ranks and voted with the opposition.

The government's scheduled term ends in 2010.

Missing divers found safe in Indonesia

Five European divers missing for about two days were found alive on a remote beach in eastern Indonesia yesterday, police said. Police began searching for the divers - three Britons, a Frenchman and a Swede - after they went missing last Thursday in dangerous waters near the Komodo National Park in the Nusa Tenggara islands, Viktor Jemadu, a senior police officer in the Manggarai Barat area told Reuters.

The five divers were part of a team of 14 who did not surface when waves suddenly picked up during a dive. Their team contacted police, who began scouring the waters late on Thursday.

"The police patrol spotted them waving their hands from a beach on Rinca island. They were safe and sound, but were a bit hungry," Jemadu said.

Egyptians protest bread shortages

Hundreds of Egyptian demonstrators sealed off a road and burned tyres yesterday to protest at bread shortages in the northern coastal town of Burullus, security sources said.

Police used teargas and batons to disperse the crowds and three protesters were hospitalised suffering from teargas inhalation, the sources said.

One security source said rubber bullets had been fired at the crowd.

Protesters accused local officials and bakeries of stealing flour earmarked for subsidised bread, causing shortages.

High wheat prices have put great strain on Egypt's bread subsidy system, where the urban poor depend on cheap bread to survive.

The demand for subsidised bread has grown and the heavy subsidy has increased the incentive to divert subsidised flour illegally to other uses.

Egypt said in May it would add at least 17 million people to the ranks of ration card holders to ease the effect of rising food prices.

Forum confuses president with predecessor

An announcer mixed up Russian President Dmitry Medvedev with his influential predecessor Vladimir Putin yesterday as the newly installed Kremlin leader attended an awards ceremony.

"The president of Russia Vl...," the announcer at the venue said as Medvedev walked onto the podium, before correcting himself and finishing the introduction: "... Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev."

The slip-up sent a fit of giggles through the audience of energy executives and senior officials attending a ceremony on the sidelines of an annual economic forum in St Petersburg. Medvedev also smiled at the mistake.

Medvedev, a long-standing Putin protégé, was sworn in as president last month. Putin stayed on as a powerful prime minister, and many observers say it is an open question which of the two men is really running Russia.