Days after calling German Chancellor Angela Merkel a political descendant of Adolf Hitler, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez shook hands with her and apologised.
"I haven't come here to fight. I was pleased to shake hands with the German chancellor," Chavez was quoted as saying at a summit of European and Latin American leaders in the Peruvian capital, Lima.
Photographs showed the two smiling as they shook hands while heads of state mingled at the gathering dedicated to tackling poverty and climate change.
Merkel, a conservative, had sought to play down the spat before her arrival in Lima, saying she would greet all delegates courteously.
Chavez made his Hitler comments after Merkel implied the leftist leader had harmed relations between Europe and Latin America.
Chavez routinely insults conservative leaders, especially US President George W. Bush, calling him the devil.
During a summit in Chile late last year, Spain's king told the socialist leader to "shut up".
Dutch to check prostitute's licence
Clients of prostitutes in the Netherlands may soon need to check for a sex licence.
The Dutch cabinet said it wanted to crack down harder on the country's sex industry, in particular unlicensed sex operators, as part of efforts to combat human trafficking.
"That is why the cabinet wants to make it an offence to use the services of a sex operator without a licence or a non-registered independent prostitute," the government said in a statement .
Prostitutes have plied their trade in the narrow alleys of the old centre of Amsterdam for centuries. While they used to attract sailors and merchants in the city's heyday as the heart of a global trading empire, they are now a huge tourist draw.
Prince Caspian underwhelms at box office
The second film in the Chronicles of Narnia film series took a commanding early lead at the weekend box office in North America, but will likely fall short of industry expectations, according to preliminary data issued yesterday.
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian sold $19.3 million worth of tickets during its first day of release across the United States and Canada on Friday, distributor Walt Disney Co. said yesterday.
Marvel Entertainment Inc's superhero smash Iron Man, the box office champ for the past two weekends, was the No. 2 choice with estimated sales of $8.6 million, according to tracking firm Box Office Mojo.
Industry observers had expected Prince Caspian to do better than the first Narnia film, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. But that film earned $23 million on its first day in December 2005, and $65.6 million in its first weekend.
Work is under way on a third film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, with British documentary veteran Michael Apted stepping in for Adamson, who will serve as a producer.
Pirates attack ship off Somalia
Jordanian authorities lost contact with a Jordanian-flagged ship off Somalia yesterday and suspect it was attacked by pirates, a Jordanian official said.
The ship Victoria, owned by a United Arab Emirates company, was carrying 4,200 tons of sugar from Denmark in humanitarian assistance to the Somali capital Mogadishu.
Authorities lost contact with the ship while it was making its way from India. The crew of around 12 people included Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and Tanzanian nationalities.
Robber burned to death
An angry mob in the Pakistani city of Karachi set on fire two men caught mugging bus passengers yesterday killing one of them, just three days after another mob had burnt three robbers to death, police said.
"They were robbing passengers on a bus when people from the neighbourhood caught them and beat them. They then set them on fire," said Aleem Jafri, the local police chief.
Police came to the rescue of the torched men, but one later died in hospital, while the other was being treated for serious burns.
It is relatively commonplace for people to beat criminals they catch, sometimes to death, but television and newspaper images this week of the torched victims of vigilante justice shocked many Pakistanis.
Rising number of Irish back EU treaty
A growing number of Irish voters say they will back the European Union's reform treaty in next month's referendum, although nearly half of those canvassed remain undecided, a poll showed yesterday.
Ireland is the only EU state planning a referendum on the treaty, meaning that a 'no' vote could sink the project designed to end years of diplomatic wrangling over reform of the bloc's institutions.
A poll in the Irish Times newspaper found that 35 per cent of Irish people said they would vote 'yes' on June 12, up from 26 per cent in a previous survey conducted in January.
Those who said they would oppose it rose to 18 per cent from 10 per cent, while 47 per cent said they were undecided, down from 64 per cent in January.
China tunnel collapse traps eight
A tunnel at a hydropower station in southwest China collapsed yesterday, trapping eight workers, but it was not yet clear whether it was related to Monday's devastating earthquake in a nearby province, state media said.
The collapse happened at a water diversion tunnel in Yunnan that is part of the Dayingjiang hydropower station, located in the Dehong Dai and Jingpo autonomous prefecture, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing a spokesman with the local government.
Xinhua cited rescue workers as saying they could still hear voices coming from the tunnel, suggesting the workers were still alive. Authorities were investigating the accident.