World Briefs

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher left hospital yesterday, nearly two weeks after being admitted with flu.

Mrs Thatcher, 85, looked unsteady and had to be supported by two people but waved and smiled for photographers in a brief public appearance after returning to her central London home.

The former Premier, nicknamed the Iron Lady, was admitted to hospital in west London on October 19 for tests after failing to shake off a bout of flu. (AFP)

Basketball player ends up in prison

A former Serb basketball player was sentenced to 27 months in prison for savagely beating a US student in New York under a plea bargain deal with prosecutors, Beta news agency reported yesterday.

Miladin Kovacevic, 24, pleaded guilty in September to the 2008 attack on Brian Steinhauer, who spent three months in a coma and suffered severe brain damage but has made a remarkable recovery.

After the attack, Mr Kovacevic was detained in the United States and then released on bail, but he fled to his homeland using a back-up passport provided by Serbian consular officials in New York.

The Serb former consul and vice consul in New York are also on trial for alleged abuse of their position related to the issue of the passport.

The dispute damaged relations between the two countries, as Serbia said it could not extradite a citizen to any other country under its current laws.

The case was finally tried in Belgrade after US justice officials formally handed it over to Serbian authorities.

The Serb government paid $900,000 to Mr Steinhauer as compensation for medical treatment. (AFP)

Bomb ‘in airport car park for year’

A bomb found in a car at Belfast International Airport had been there for almost a year, it has been disclosed.

Staff checking vehicles at the long-stay car park found a pipe bomb attached to cans of petrol. But it failed to detonate properly because of an apparent fault with the timing device.

It is believed the car, a Toyota Carina, had been there since last year and the bomb was meant to go off at the time the car was abandoned.

Scores of passengers on returning flights and unable to drive home had to be accommodated at nearby hotels on Saturday night because of the security alert.

The car carried a Northern Ireland registration number plate and police are trying to trace its history and to check records if there were any bomb warnings at the airport 18 miles from Belfast. (PA)

Bulger killer online contact behind bars

A paedophile who negotiated online with child killer Jon Venables has been jailed for breaching a sexual offences prevention order.

Leslie Blanchard, 53, visited dating sites and viewed adult internet pornography on three separate occasions despite an order being put in place banning him from doing so.

Earlier this year it emerged that Mr Blanchard had been in internet contact with Jon Venables, who was convicted of murdering toddler James Bulger.

Passing sentence, Judge Anthony Pitts said: “Unbelievably, you took the risk of being found out and accessing that material, not once, but three times.” (PA)

Dude, it’s a whale!

An Australian teenager who climbed onto a whale and rode on its back has said he never intended to hurt the animal and had been acting instinctively when he put his arms around the massive sea creature.

Sam Matheson, 14, said he was with a friend at Middleton Beach in Albany south of Perth when he saw the animal not far off the Western Australian coast and decided to take a closer look.

“I swam out to it and put my arms on it, sort of laid against it for about 20 or 30 seconds. I was out of the water from the waist up,” the keen surfer told Perth’s Sunday Times.

“It was like a leather texture, like a really smooth leather, really soft. It wasn’t even scary, it was like, ‘Dude, it’s a whale’.”

The teen said the whale, which he estimated to be about 14 metres long, did not even notice him until he laid on it.

“Then it lifted up its tail, it went under and it pulled me down at bit, but I was fine and I swam back to the rocks,” he said. (AFP)

Policemen jailed

A court in central China said it had jailed two police officers for the attempted rape of two teenage girls, one of whom jumped to her death while trying to resist the assault.

Gong Cheng, a policeman in Hunan province, was given the death penalty with a two-year reprieve, the Intermediate People’s Court in Xiangxi prefecture said in a statement – a sentence normally commuted to life in prison.

Assistant policeman Xu Lei was sentenced to 15 years in jail. Another three men involved in the attempted rape were given the death penalty with a two-year reprieve, life in prison and 13 years respectively. (AFP)