DOCKED

A Russian supply ship docked with the International Space Station on Saturday, delivering food and fuel to the two astronauts living there, mission control said.

The unmanned Progress M-50, which blasted off from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe last Wednesday, was also bringing DVDs and magazines for Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and NASA’s Michael Fincke. * NEGLECTED – The operator of a nuclear power plant where a long-neglected cooling pipe burst and killed four workers last week said yesterday four other pipes at its reactors also went unchecked for years.Kansai Electric has temporarily shut down all of its nuclear power facilities to conduct inspections after the August 9 accident, in which a pipe burst and burned workers with scalding hot water and superheated steam.* ACCUSED – Mozambique’s former rebel movement accused the government yesterday of moving police units to their stronghold in central Sofala province following a gun battle last week that left one policeman dead.* JEWELLERY – Thieves stole thousands of euros’ worth of jewellery and cash from guests staying at a luxury French Riviera hotel on the weekend, striking several times in the same night in a major embarrassment to the property’s managers.* BOYCOTT – Maldivian dissidents yesterday called for foreigners to boycott the tourism-dependent Indian Ocean archipelago whose capital is under emergency rule after pro-democracy rallies.* PLUTONIUM – France’s state-owned Areva nuclear energy company denied yesterday that a truckload of plutonium it was sending to a subsidiary in Belgium was US military grade, as the environmental group Greenpeace claimed.”It’s not plutonium from the US disarmament plan,” an Areva executive, Thierry Langlois, said.* STRIKE – British Airways check-in staff working at airports across Britain agreed yesterday to stage a 24-hour strike over pay during a busy public holiday weekend later this month, union leaders said.BA staff who are members of the GMB union will stop working on either August 27, 28, 29 or 30, from 3h30, unless a long-running pay dispute is resolved.- Nampa-AP-AFP-Reuters* NEGLECTED – The operator of a nuclear power plant where a long-neglected cooling pipe burst and killed four workers last week said yesterday four other pipes at its reactors also went unchecked for years.Kansai Electric has temporarily shut down all of its nuclear power facilities to conduct inspections after the August 9 accident, in which a pipe burst and burned workers with scalding hot water and superheated steam.* ACCUSED – Mozambique’s former rebel movement accused the government yesterday of moving police units to their stronghold in central Sofala province following a gun battle last week that left one policeman dead.* JEWELLERY – Thieves stole thousands of euros’ worth of jewellery and cash from guests staying at a luxury French Riviera hotel on the weekend, striking several times in the same night in a major embarrassment to the property’s managers.* BOYCOTT – Maldivian dissidents yesterday called for foreigners to boycott the tourism-dependent Indian Ocean archipelago whose capital is under emergency rule after pro-democracy rallies.* PLUTONIUM – France’s state-owned Areva nuclear energy company denied yesterday that a truckload of plutonium it was sending to a subsidiary in Belgium was US military grade, as the environmental group Greenpeace claimed.”It’s not plutonium from the US disarmament plan,” an Areva executive, Thierry Langlois, said.* STRIKE – British Airways check-in staff working at airports across Britain agreed yesterday to stage a 24-hour strike over pay during a busy public holiday weekend later this month, union leaders said.BA staff who are members of the GMB union will stop working on either August 27, 28, 29 or 30, from 3h30, unless a long-running pay dispute is resolved.- Nampa-AP-AFP-Reuters