IN BRIEF

Don't meddle in stoning case: Iran

TEHRAN: Foreign countries should not interfere in Iran's legal system and stop trying to turn the case of a woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery into a human rights issue, Tehran said yesterday. The case of the 43-year-old mother of two, condemned to death for illicit sex and charged with involvement in her husband's murder, provoked an international outcry, with Brazil offering her asylum and the Vatican speaking out against the "brutal" punishment.

Nigerian presidential vote set for Jan 22

ABUJA: Nigeria will hold presidential elections on January 22, a spokesman for the national electoral commission announced yesterday, after intense speculation over when the vote would go forward. Solomon Adedeji Soyebi also said national assembly elections would be held January 15, while governorship and state assembly ballots were set for January 29.

World's 'smallest' man tours Big Apple

NEW YORK: A Nepalese teenager set to be declared the planet's smallest person got the big star treatment yesterday on a tour of New York. Crowds at Times Square jostled for a glimpse of Khagendra Thapa Magar who at 17 is the size of a baby and has stopped growing.

Polish researcher fined for shooting polar bear

OSLO: A Polish researcher was fined 5,000 Norwegian kroner (US$805) by local authorities on the Norwegian arctic archipelago of Svalbard for shooting a polar bear that later died, a spokesman said yesterday. A Polish scientist shot the polar bear in July with the intention to scare it away, Arild Lyssand of the Svalbard local authority told AFP, but the bear was hit and 12 days later died of its injuries.

Moscow lays claim to 18th century shipwreck

MOSCOW: Russia has laid claim to Catherine II's collection of precious objects found in a 1771 shipwreck near the Finnish coast, the president of Russia's cultural heritage foundation said yesterday. "All cargo found in a sunken ship must be returned to its owner, if the owner has not abandoned it, according to international law," Artem Tarassov said at a press conference. "And Catherine the Great was far from abandoning it, contrarily she lobbied for two years in (then Finnish territory) Sweden to begin the process of refloating," added Tarassov, who investigated the shipwreck. Russia and Finland tiffed over the ship.

Agencies