A Moscow court yesterday jailed a Russian citizen for four years for handing secrets to the United States, in a rare public espionage scandal between two ex-foes keen to bury their Cold War past.
Gennady Sipachev was convicted of spying for the United States by handing over top secret Russian military maps for the Pentagon to assist the targeting of US missile systems, Russian official news agencies reported.
The verdict on Mr Sipachev was the first time information had been made public about the case, which comes at a time when Moscow and Washington have been working hard to improve relations.
The investigation found that Mr Sipachev had sent the maps, which were classified as state secrets, to the United States through the internet.
He was sentenced at the Moscow city court after being found guilty of article 275 in Russia's legal code "state treason in the form of espionage". No details were given on his age, occupation or background.
Pictures broadcast on state television showed Mr Sipachev - a balding middle-aged man with black-framed glasses and a moustache - in the glass-fronted accused box in the courtroom. Casually dressed in a short-sleeved shirt, he appeared relaxed and made notes for his lawyer. (AFP)
Gold vending machine installed
There's no mistaking what's in this vending machine. The well-heeled in the Gulf can now grab "gold to go" from a hotel lobby in the United Arab Emirates, when the need for a quick ingot strikes.
Yesterday, a day after its inauguration, the shiny machine attracted spectators of many different nationalities who gathered to watch whenever an enthusiast was struck with the urge to splurge on a bar of the precious metal.
Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace Hotel became the first place outside Germany to install "gold to go, the world's first gold vending machine," said a statement from Ex Oriente Lux AG, the German company behind the vending machine.
"In addition to one-gram, five-gram and 10-gram bars of gold, the machine also dispenses gold coins," it added. (AFP)
Actress leaves fortune to butler
Hollywood actress Ruth Ford has left her entire £5.6m fortune to her Nepalese butler - cutting her family out of any inheritance.
Mrs Ford, who died last year at 98, owned two homes in New York's Dakota Building and they now belong to Indra Tamang, who was raised in a mud house in rural Nepal.
He has spent the past three decades working as a loyal servant for the Ford family.
In her will, the actress, model and wife of film star Zachary Scott left her estate, which included the two flats and her valuable collection of Russian surrealist art, to Mr Tamang.
Her clothes and some jewellery were the only things kept back.
Mrs Ford barely spoke to her estranged daughter Shelley Scott and both she and the star's two grandchildren were written out of her will. (PA)
Metro 'attacks planners' killed
Russian security forces killed three people suspected of organising the suicide bombings in the Moscow metro, an official said yesterday, as a new deadly attack hit the troubled Caucasus.
Security forces attempted to detain the three but killed them after they put up resistance, the chief of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, told President Dmitry Medvedev.
Meanwhile, at least five people were killed in a bomb attack in Dagestan, the Caucasus region that was the home of the two Moscow female suicide bombers, officials said.
"Unfortunately we were not able to detain them alive. They offered fierce armed resistance and were destroyed," Mr Bortnikov said, without specifying when or where the killings of those allegedly linked to the Moscow attacks took place. (AFP)
Volcanic ash sells like hot cakes
An Icelandic internet company has turned the volcanic ash cloud that led to Europe's biggest aerial shutdown since World War II into a charity money-spinner, its chief executive said yesterday.
The online shop, nammi.is, which sells various products from the north Atlantic island, is offering 160-gram (five-and-a-half ounce) jars of the ash from Eyjafjpoll volcano for €23.80, with the proceeds all going to charity.
"The response has been enormous since we started this 10 days ago," Sofus Gustavsson said, whose company has sold the ash to 60 countries so far.
In all, 133 countries have made inquiries and almost a million visitors have gone onto the website since the offer began.
"It all started when one of our foreign clients, who is a collector, inquired if we could get him some ash from the volcano. I thought right away that this was a brilliant idea," the website's chief executive explained.
"My father lives nearby the volcano and I asked him if he could get me some ash. He shovelled a whole lot and brought it to me." (AFP)
Cyber-vigilante released
Latvian police yesterday released a suspected cyber-vigilante accused of leaking tax information in an internet campaign that left the Baltic nation's elite red-faced, amid protests over his arrest.
"Taking into consideration his attitude, his confession of the crime, and his cooperation in the investigation, we did not seek his pre-trial detention," Ieva Reksna, a spokesman for the state police, said.
Earlier yesterday, hundreds of protesters had chalked slogans outside the main government building in central Riga, calling on the authorities to release the suspected hacker nicknamed "Neo".
"This is about an arrest of an ordinary whistle-blower, who committed no crime, but exposed the fact that many government institutions were not following government policy of reducing costs and salaries," protester Juris Kaza, a journalist with the local news agency Leta, said. (AFP)