World briefs

Nicole Kidman (above) and Clive Owen (right) are playing writers Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway in a new HBO film, but they would prefer to keep their own lives off-screen.

At a news conference promoting Hemingway and Gellhorn, Kidman said she likes her privacy and protects it “quite diligently”. She and husband Keith Urban live in Nashville, Tennessee, with their two daughters.

Kidman’s British co-star shares her viewpoint. Of a Clive Owen biopic, he said: “I wouldn’t want to see it.”

Hemingway and Gellhorn is set to air in May. It is about the passionate, short-lived relationship of Gellhorn, a daring war correspondent, and the great novelist.

Kidman said she enjoys portraying inspirational women “who defy the odds and that burn bright”, as Gellhorn did.

Major websites face prosecution

Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other websites are facing prosecution in Indian courts for refusing to censor themselves and remove contents considered insulting to Indian leaders and major religious figures.

Government officials are upset about web pages that are insulting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and major religious figures. Some illustrations have shown Singh and Gandhi in compromising positions and pigs running through Mecca, Islam’s holiest city.

The federal government said there was sufficient material to proceed against 21 social networking sites for offences of “promoting enmity between classes and causing prejudice to national integration”.

Japan PM stresses debt reduction

Japan’s prime minister said his country should be alarmed by ratings cuts in Europe and tackle the country’s massive public debts to avoid becoming a next target.

Premier Yoshihiko Noda said during a live TV talk show that the eurozone debt crisis is not “someone else’s problem”.

Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s last Friday downgraded the ratings of nine eurozone countries including France, Italy and Spain.

Japan could be the next target if it is seen as dragging feet on reforms, he said.

Mr Noda reshuffled his Cabinet last Friday in a bid to win co-operation from the opposition and voters to raise the sales tax and rein in the bulging fiscal deficit.

10 die in Muslim shrine stampede

A stampede during a religious ceremony in central India has left at least 10 people dead.

Senior police officer Rajesh Vyas said the stampede occurred early yesterday when a large number of people surged forward to gain entry into a Muslim shrine, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

Mr Vyas said some pilgrims fell down and were crushed to death. The shrine is near Ratlam, a town in Madhya Pradesh state, nearly 480 miles south west of New Delhi. Police in the region could not be immediately reached for details.

Deadly stampedes are relatively common at religious places in India, where large crowds gather in tiny areas with no safety measures or crowd control.