World Briefs

Natasha Regan and her seven-year-old son Oscar Selby (picture), who scored an A* in his maths GCSE, at less than half the age most youngsters take the exam. Oscar, who attends Stamford Green Primary School in Epsom, spent four hours every Saturday for nine months studying for the course through Hertfordshire-based Ryde Teaching.

George Michael ‘could face jail’

George Michael has been warned he could face jail after he admitted crashing his Range Rover while under the influence of cannabis.

The 47-year-old pop star appeared amid heavy security at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court after he was arrested last month. He pleaded guilty to driving while unfit through drugs and possessing two cannabis cigarettes when he was held in Hampstead, north-west London, in the early hours of July 4.

The court heard the former Wham! frontman was found slumped at the wheel of his car after a resident dialled 999 to report a vehicle had ploughed into a branch of Snappy Snaps. (PA)

Cameron’s wife gives birth

Britain’s Prime Minister David Camero’s wife Samantha gave birth to a baby girl yesterday, making the child only the second born to a serving British premier in 160 years.

Mr Cameron said the birth of the “unbelievably beautiful girl” was “absolutely thrilling”, but her early arrival during their summer holiday in Cornwall, southwest England, had come as “a bit of a shock”.

The baby, weighing six pounds and one ounce, was delivered by Caesarean section around midday (1100 GMT) at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro.

“She’d been having contractions for the last couple of days on and off and thought this was time to come to the hospital to check out and see if everything was fine,” a clearly excited Mr Cameron, 43, told reporters outside. (AFP)

Record fine

A British regulator yesterday said it had fined the UK division of Swiss group Zurich Insurance more than £2 million for losing customers’ data – a record amount for such an offence. The penalty of £2.275 million is for the loss two years ago of personal details belonging to 46,000 customers signed up with Zurich UK, the Financial Services Authority said in a statement.

“The FSA has fined the UK branch of Zurich Insurance Plc... for failing to have adequate systems and controls in place to prevent the loss of customers’ confidential information,” it said.

“The fine is the highest levied to date (by the FSA) on a single firm for data security failings.” (AFP)

WWII flying ace dies

Marcel Albert, a flying ace in the French resistance who won dozens of air fights against ­German pilots in World War II, died aged 92 in the United States, a French honorary body announced yesterday.

Albert, an air force pilot who rose to lead French squadrons on the eastern front after joining the resistance, died at a nursing home in Texas overnight on Sunday to Monday, said the Order of the Liberation in a statement.

Born in Paris in November 1917, Albert worked in a Renault car factory as a youth before training as a pilot and joining the French air force shortly before Germany invaded.

In 1941, “refusing defeat and inactivity,” he escaped to Britain, joined the resistance and flew fighter missions in France and then on the Soviet front aboard a Russian Yak fighter, said the Order, which awards France’s second-highest honour to France’s heroes.

There are now just 39 Companions of the Liberation still alive, including Roland de La Poype, 90, who like Albert served in the Normandie-Niemen squadron which distinguished itself on the eastern front. (AFP)

Anthrax outbreak

Bulgaria’s veterinary service has confirmed an anthrax outbreak among sheep in the northeastern village of Brestovene, it said in a statement yesterday.

An outbreak of the disease was already suspected after five sheep died earlier this month, sparking fears that the herd’s 64-year-old owner and his eight-year-old grandson might also be infected.

Doctors later ruled out that the two had caught the disease.

Local veterinarians however undertook emergency vaccinations of all cattle in the village in a move to contain the highly contagious disease, which can also carry on to humans.

Some 950 animals out of a total 1,300 have already been vaccinated, the veterinary service said yesterday.

No other sheep have died since the first five were reported, it added.

This is the first case of the disease in the region of Brestovene in 30 years, it said. (AFP)