News from around the World

(The excerpts from World Briefs and World Scene below are from WashingtonTimes.com – from wire dispatches and Washington Times staff reports)

ITALY – Gadhafi touts Islam to women in Rome

ROME | Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a lesson on Islam and copies of the Koran to a few hundred young Italian women Sunday as he arrived in Rome for his fourth visit in a year.

It was the second time the Libyan leader – who travels with female bodyguards and fancies himself a self-styled feminist – had staged such an event for Italian women, who were recruited by a modeling agency and paid an undisclosed sum to attend.

Michela, who asked that her last name not be used, told Associated Press Television News that three of the participants converted to Islam on the spot.

“It was a really beautiful meeting and went very well,” she said. “He is very easygoing and he gave us a copy of the Koran. Three girls converted [to Islam] during the ceremony. It was a beautiful event.”

UNITED KINGDOM – Oxford online phases out printed dictionary

LONDON | It has been in print for more than a century, but the Oxford English Dictionary – the authoritative guide to the English language – may be available only online in the future.

Oxford University Press, the publisher, said Sunday that burgeoning demand for the dictionary’s online version has far outpaced demand for the printed versions.

Publishers are doubtful that there will be a market for the printed form by the time the lexicographers behind the dictionary finish revising and updating the latest edition, a gargantuan task that will take many more years.

The online Oxford English Dictionary now gets 2 million hits a month from subscribers. About 30,000 of the current printed edition – a hefty 20-volume, 750 pound ($1,165) set published in 1989 – have sold.

“At present we are experiencing increasing demand for the online product,” a statement from the publisher said. “However, a print version will certainly be considered if there is sufficient demand at the time of publication.”

SPAIN – Socialists slash budget in bid to keep power

MADRID | The Spanish government is focused on passing its 2011 budget this autumn, a leading politician for the ruling Socialists said, playing down the risk of early elections if the budget fails to get parliamentary approval.

The budget, which will be presented to lawmakers by the end of September, will contain $12.72 billion of spending cuts and needs the backing of small, regional parties to pass.

“The government is only working under the hypothesis that it will have a budget,” Leire Pajin, leader of the Socialist party PSOE told Cadena Ser radio in an interview Sunday.

As Spain struggles to emerge from the recession and fend off worries about its ability to fund its debt, Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has promised huge spending cuts while he tries to keep his unpopular government in power until 2012 elections.

Mr. Zapatero’s Socialists have 169 seats in the lower house, seven seats short of an absolute majority. The conservative PP party, which has 153 seats of out of 350, is unlikely to support the budget, as are the CiU Catalan nationalists, with 10 seats.

CHINA – Kim, son reportedly take succession tour

CHANGCHUN | North Korean leader Kim Jong-il visited China’s northeastern city of Harbin on Sunday while on a secretive trip reportedly aimed at drumming up support for a succession plan involving his youngest son, a news report said.

Reporters have followed a 35-vehicle motorcade – apparently used by the reclusive Mr. Kim – around several cities in northeastern China. Mr. Kim, 68, rarely leaves North Korea and when he does travels by special train.

In Harbin, Mr. Kim toured a historic site commemorating his father’s communist movement, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said. Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Il-sung, engaged in anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare in Harbin during Japan’s colonial occupation.

Yonhap said Mr. Kim likely would depart from Harbin later Sunday or early Monday.

Yonhap earlier quoted an unidentified diplomat as saying Mr. Kim would visit Yanbian, a Korean autonomous prefecture in the far northeastern Chinese province of Jilin bordering North Korea, but it later reported that Mr. Kim arrived by train in Harbin without stopping.

North Korea does not announce Mr. Kim’s trips until after he returns home, and China has refused to say whether he is in the country, even though a Japanese television station had a grainy picture of him.

VENEZUELA – Jailed Chavez foe calls case a farce

CARACAS | The leader of a conservative group opposed to President Hugo Chavez has been charged with hiding explosives in his home – allegations he called a farce in comments sent from his jail cell.

Prosecutors announced conspiracy and arms trafficking charges against Alejandro Pena Esclusa on Friday, more than six weeks after he was arrested on July 12.

The attorney general’s office said in a statement that agents who raided his apartment found about 100 detonators and 2 pounds of C4 explosives.

Officials have linked Mr. Pena’s arrest to the capture of a Salvadoran man, Francisco Chavez Abarca, who is accused of helping to organize bombings in Cuba as part of a campaign against the island’s communist government.

Mr. Pena, who is jailed in the intelligence agency headquarters in Caracas, said Saturday night in a written response to questions from the Associated Press that “the accusations against me are a farce.”

NOTE: The news blurbs above are from World Briefs and World Scene published at WashingtonTimes.com on Sunday, June 6, 2010.

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