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