World Briefs

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi made a fresh faux pas yesterday, talking on his mobile instead of posing for a group photo with Nato's other 27 leaders on a bridge spanning the Rhine.

Arriving on the German side of the river, Berlusconi got out of his limousine with his cellphone to his ear and turned his back on Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel instead of walking to greet her.

Left standing alone on the red carpet, Merkel smiled weakly at the Italian and proceeded to greet half a dozen other leaders including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown as they arrived in their motorcades.

Once the leaders had all arrived seven or eight minutes later, Merkel gave up on Berlusconi and went to join the other leaders waiting for the photo, looking round at one point to see if the Italian was arriving - but in vain.

His phone call continued, and when a brass band struck up, Berlusconi put his finger in his ear and walked further down the river bank to escape the noise.

The leaders, including US President Barack Obama, then crossed the bridge to meet President Nicolas Sarkozy who crossed from the French side before meeting midway and posing for a photo - without the Italian leader.

Protest in Rome over financial crisis

Several hundred thousand workers, pensioners, immigrants and students filled a Rome park yesterday to protest against the Italian government's handling of the financial crisis.

Led by Italy's largest union, the left-wing Italian General Confederation of Labour, many wore red hats or waved the CGIL's red flag as helicopters circled above.

"There's too big a gap between what needs to be done and what is being done," CGIL leader Guglielmo Epifani told the throng, with banners reading 'Together to build a different future' and 'Down with the new Mussolini'.

"It's a pleasure to see the park filled once more," he said, recalling a mass protest in 2002 that drew three million people to the same venue to protest a bill that would have annulled a law protecting against unfair dismissal.

Forty trainloads and nearly 5,000 buses as well as two ships ferried protesters to Rome from all over Italy, and they converged at Circo Massimo, an ancient hippodrome that is now a public park.

Egypt police beat, detain students

Police in Egypt arrested 25 students yesterday, beating them and five lawyers ahead of a planned nationwide strike tomorrow to protest against government policies, a human rights group told AFP.

The students had been staging a sit-in outside a courthouse in the Nile Delta city of Kafr el-Sheikh in protest at the arrest on Thursday of two other students.

"A central security truck arrived outside the courthouse, and the police began to run after students and beat them," Rawda Ahmed of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) told AFP.

Nazi camp guard to remain in the US

A Nazi death camp guard accused of helping to kill some 29,000 Jews during World War II has won the right to remain in the US for now, an immigration judge has ruled.

A Virginia judge said late on Friday that John Demjanjuk, 89, who faces expulsion to Germany on war crimes charges, can remain at his Ohio home while the case is further examined.

Demjanjuk's defence team has argued his imminent expulsion to Germany and near-certain arrest on arrival would constitute torture given his age.

The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk is one of the world's top Nazi war crimes suspects, wanted for his role at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Demjanjuk was ranked number two on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's 2008 'most wanted' Nazi criminal list, behind Aribert Heim, nicknamed 'Doctor Death', who according to a recent investigation died in 1992.

NY Times threatens to close Boston Globe

The New York Times Co. has threatened to shut down the Boston Globe unless unions at the money-losing daily agree to pay cuts and other cost-saving measures, the newspapers reported.

The Times, citing a "person briefed on the talks", said the Times Co. was seeking $20 million in savings at the Globe, which was purchased by the Times Co. for $1.1 billion in 1993.

The Globe reported that Times Co. executives had met with union leaders at the Boston newspaper on Thursday and demanded concessions such as pay cuts, an end to pension contributions and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees.