World Briefs

A Serbian union official who chopped off his finger and ate it in a protest over wages that in some cases have not been paid in years, said yesterday he did it to show how desperate he and other workers were.

"We, the workers have nothing to eat, we had to seek some sort of alternative food and I gave them an example," Zoran Bulatovic said. "It hurt like hell."

Mr Bulatovic, a union leader at the Raska Holding textile factory in Novi Pazar in southwest Serbia, used a hacksaw to cut off most of his left-hand little finger. (Reuters)

Serbia to prosecute Gestapo member

Serbia's prosecutor for war crimes said yesterday that measures were in hand to strip a former Gestapo member, Peter Egner, of US nationality so that he could be prosecuted for Nazi war crimes.

The US Ambassador to Serbia, Cameron Munter, told a joint press conference that "American authorities are working with Serb authorities in the way mentioned by Mr Vukcevic." At the end of last August, Mr Vukcevic asked for a probe into Mr Egner, 87, on the grounds that as a member of the Gestapo during World War II, he had organised the execution of Jews and other civilians at a camp in Belgrade and another in a suburb of the city. (AFP)

EU takes deficit action

The European Union officially launched yesterday disciplinary action against France, Greece, Ireland and Spain for allowing their deficits to rise past an EU limit.

Under EU rules, the bloc's member countries are supposed to keep their budget shortfalls to less than three per cent of gross domestic product although they are allowed some leeway when the economy sours.

In a document adopted by foreign ministers in Luxembourg, EU countries urged the four countries and Britain, which is already subject to disciplinary action, to take measures to rein in their deficits by the end of October. (AFP)

Belarus's Lukashenko meets Pope

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko met with Pope Benedict XVI yesterday during his first trip to western Europe since an EU travel ban was relaxed in October, the Vatican said.

The authoritarian leader, once dubbed "Europe's last dictator" by the United States, made the Vatican and Italy his first foray to the region since 1996, when he visited France.

Citing Belarus's dismal human rights record, including the jailing of opposition members and charges of election rigging in 2006, the EU had placed Mr Lukashenko and dozens of Belarussian officials on a travel blacklist.

However, in recent months there has been a warming of EU-Belarus ties, to the irritation of Minsk's neighbour Russia, and the Vatican said the pair met in a "positive atmosphere." (AFP)

Tony Blair promoting tourism

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is to visit Sierra Leone this week to promote the country's potential as a tourism hotspot, a spokesman said yesterday.

Mr Blair, who will be in Freetown between today and tomorrow, will meet President Ernest Koroma as part of his Africa Governance Initiative, which has had nine experts working with the war-torn country for the past six months.

"During this visit Tony Blair will particularly focus on the tourism potential of the country and the fact that Sierra Leone is being recognised as an emerging destination," said the spokesman for Mr Blair, who was lauded for his role in ending Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war. (AFP)

'Long meetings cause pain in rear'

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said the hardest part of his 15-hour per day job is the long meetings - because they put a strain on a sensitive part of his anatomy.

"There are some meetings that are so incredibly long that at some point your rear end starts to hurt," Mr Steinbrueck told a group of young school children in an interview for the Welt am Sonntag newspaper published on Sunday.

The four Berlin students, aged 11 to 13, had asked the minister if he ever got tired of his job after he said he has to work up to 14 or 15 hours almost every day of the week. (Reuters)

'Barbarians' on trial for murder

Members of a gang known as "The Barbarians" from the Paris suburbs will go on trial tomorrow for the murder of a young Jewish man that shocked France for its sheer brutality.

Ilan Halimi was kidnapped and subjected to torture for 24 days before he was found naked and handcuffed to a tree near a railway track in February 2006. The 23-year-old died on his way to hospital.

Gang leader Youssouf Fofana and 26 others are to answer various charges during the trial, which will be held behind closed doors before a Paris juvenile court because two defendants were minors at the time of the crime. (AFP)