More than 30 prisoners have escaped from a jail in southeastern Guinea by using spoons to scoop a hole in the baked earth wall of their prison building which had been softened by rain, prison authorities said.
The 36 detainees made their escape after taking advantage of heavy rain which had fallen on the southeast city of N'Zerekore where the prison was located, the authorities, cited by state media in the West African country, said.
"We found that the detainees used spoons, once the wall was moistened, to dig a hole. They used their sheets and shirts to make a rope to climb down the right wall of the jail," one of the warders told Guinean TV.
Many of Guinea's old prison buildings were damaged during bloody riots which erupted across the country early last year during a strike by unions protesting against high inflation and the rule of veteran President Lansana Conte.
More than 130 people were killed, mostly civilians shot by security forces.
Diamonds become girls' worst friends
Diamonds may be forever. But what's a girl to do when she gets dumped or divorced and those rings, necklaces and love gifts lose their emotional sparkle?
Help is just a click away on new websites that provide an outlet for selling jewellery from past relationships, sharing break-up stories and helping broken hearts heal.
"You go through a divorce. What do you do with that ring? Maybe you have a child you can pass it on to. Maybe you don't. It just sits there," said Marie Perry, who with her stepdaughter Megahn Perry runs www.exboyfriendjewelry.com.
"We wanted to create a platform in the community where people can get in contact with others with similar needs," Perry told Reuters.
Three months after its launch with the slogan "You Don't Want It. He Can't Have It Back," the website has 3,000 registered users and more than 600 postings of rings, bracelets and earrings for sale - all with a personal tale attached.
Turkmenistan to move gold statue of Turkmenbashi
A rotating gold statue of Turkmenistan's former leader is to be removed from the centre of the capital, state media said yesterday, as his successor chips away at the late president's personality cult.
Saparmurat Niyazov spent his 21 years in power building Turkmenistan into one of the world's most isolated regimes while imposing his mark on the gas-rich central Asian state.
He styled himself Turkmenbashi, or 'Father of all the Turkmen', and spent giant sums building sumptuous memorials to his own wisdom, including a 75-metre tall tower in central Ashgabat whose summit is a statue of himself.
But President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has ordered the giant syringe-like structure that towers over low-rise Ashgabat to be removed to a southern suburb, state media said.
Lindsay Lohan mug shot launches drunk driving ad
A US restaurant and alcohol group used a mug shot of troubled actress Lindsay Lohan to launch a national campaign against the use of new technology aimed at keeping drunks off the road.
A full-page advertisement in the newspaper USA Today used the police shot of Lohan after her arrest in Los Angeles last year for drunken driving under a caption saying "Ignition interlocks. A good idea for:" (Lohan) "But a bad idea for us:" showing pictures of adults drinking at weddings and restaurants.
UN pact for rights of disabled comes into force
A UN convention aimed at ensuring equal rights for the world's 650 million disabled people in work, education and social life went into force yesterday.
The pact, the first of its kind and billed by the United Nations as the first new human rights treaty of the 21st century, took effect 30 days after being ratified by 20 countries that have signed it. That figure has since risen to 25, but does not include the United States and Russia.
In a statement last month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the implementation of the pact less than two years after its adoption by the General Assembly - a short time by UN standards - a "historic moment."
Ban said it showed the world was committed to combating "the egregious neglect and dehumanising practices that violate the human rights of persons with disabilities."
The 32-page UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities outlaws all forms of discrimination at work on the basis of disability, including in hiring, promotion and working conditions. It requires equal pay for work of equal value.
Hollywood actors, studios extend labour talks
The Screen Actors Guild and major Hollywood studios said they have agreed to a another extension of their contract talks, this one on a day-by-day basis, in hopes of closing a deal by next Tuesday.
The announcement, coming as the parties neared a previous self-imposed deadline, heightened prospects that they could preserve labour peace in the entertainment industry following a 100-day strike by screenwriters that ended in February.
The current three-year SAG contract covering 120,000 film and television actors expires on June 30, but the two sides had planned to negotiate in hopes of clinching a settlement.
The actors union and the studios' bargaining agent, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, said in a joint statement that they would continue their negotiations "on a day-to-day basis".
A source familiar with the course of negotiations said SAG had scaled back a number of demands that were considered major points of contention.
In one such concession, the source said, the union was now seeking what would effectively be a 15 per cent increase in residual payments actors earn from DVDs, rather than a doubling of the DVD residual rate.