Greenpeace stages UK protest over Indonesian wood: Greenpeace

Greenpeace stages UK protest over Indonesian wood: Greenpeace activists scaled cranes at a government construction site in central London on Wednesday to protest at illegal logging in Indonesia. Nine men and two women took part in the action, at a Home Office site in central London, the group said. The British government should halt all plywood imports from Indonesia, one of the world's largest timber producers, since it is virtually impossible to certify that wood from the country has not been logged illegally, Greenpeace said. --Reuters

Political parties furious as king appoints new PM: Nepal's King Gyanendra on Wednesday appointed veteran politician Surya Bahadur Thapa as the country's new prime minister, sparking fury from the main political parties which condemned the move as "undemocratic". Leading politicians said they would not cooperate with the new prime minister after the king overlooked their preferred candidate in favor of Thapa, who has already served as in the post four times. A senior leader of the Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist Leninist (NCP-UML) said the king had asked the parties to recommend someone for the job and they had put forward the name of Madhav Kumar Nepal, general secretary of the NCP-UML, but this had been ignored. --AFP

Belgium finds nerve gas ingredient in letters: Belgian investigators found a nerve gas ingredient in letters addressed to the Belgian prime minister's office, and the U.S., British and Saudi Arabian embassies, officials said on Wednesday. Two postal workers were briefly hospitalized after being exposed to the chemicals. The brownish-yellow powder contained phenarsazine chloride, an arsenic derivative used in nerve gas, as well as hydrazine, an agent used as a rocket propellant, Health Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Francoise Gally said. --Reuters

Venice basilica briefly evacuated after bomb scare: St. Mark's Basilica, the landmark church fronting the famed Venetian piazza, was briefly evacuated on Wednesday after a man shouted he was a terrorist and claimed that cigars he had left inside were sticks of dynamite, police said. The man was quickly taken away by police and held for questioning, officials said. News reports identified him as a 25-year-old from Senegal. There were about 100 tourists visiting St. Mark's Basilica at around 10:30 a.m. when the man started screaming he was a terrorist, said a Venice police official who refused to give his name. Bomb experts were brought into investigate, but police said the purported dynamite turned out to be eight cigars bundled together with scotch tape to make it appear they were explosives. --AP