The world - Oct. 21, 2010

THURSDAY

U.N. Undersecretary-General for Management Angela Kane said the United States owes $1.2 billion in back dues to the United Nations. Kane said only 13 of the United Nations’ 192 member states were paid in full.

Underground dungeons at Rome’s Colosseum, considered to be one of the great feats of Roman architecture and where gladiators once locked in mortal combat, will open to the public for the first time next week.

Court officers in eastern Russia seized a piglet from a woman who owes a bank 13,000 roubles ($432) and put it up for sale to recuperate some of the money. The woman had been given the seven-month-old piglet for safekeeping, but it was taken away after a court survey of her property found it to be her most valuable possession.

FRIDAY

Swiss engineers drilling the world’s longest tunnel broke through the last section of rock, crowning more than a decade of work. The 35.5-mile rail tunnel will enter service in 2017, taking some of the tens of thousands of tons of freight that crosses the Alps by road every day. The project is costing more than $12.58 billion and has claimed the lives of eight workers.

The Brooklyn Bridge reopened on Friday after it was briefly closed to traffic and pedestrians due to a suspicious package, police said. No further details were available.

For the first time ever, young Japanese women now make more money than their male peers. According to an Internal Affairs ministry survey, a single woman under 30 averages 218,156 yen ($2,680) a month, while a man averages 215,515 yen ($2,640).

WEEKEND

More than a million people marched in cities across France on Saturday in the latest protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s flagship pension reform, and refinery strikes squeezed fuel at airports. Truck drivers began blocking roads Sunday. Sarkozy’s proposal raises the country’s retirement age from 60 to 62.

There is little hope of finding alive 11 missing coal miners trapped after a gas leak in central China that already killed 26 people. The accident occurred early Saturday morning in a pit owned by Pingyu Coal & Electric Co. Ltd based in Yuzhou city.

MONDAY

The official Vatican newspaper declared beer-swilling, doughnut-loving Homer Simpson and son Bart are Catholic, and urged parents to let their children watch "the adventures of the little guys in yellow." The newspaper cited a study by a Jesuit priest that concluded "The Simpsons" is "among the few TV programs for kids in which Christian faith, religion and questions about God are recurrent themes."

The Seventh Circuit federal appeals court halted a lawsuit accusing the National Collegiate Athletic Association of running an illegal lottery in allocating seats to basketball’s Final Four and other popular sports tournaments.

A barracuda jumped out of the water and bit a 45-year-old woman kayaker in the chest in the Florida Keys, causing injuries which required her evacuation by boat and helicopter to a Miami hospital.

TUESDAY

The U.S. government will spend up to $760 million to compensate American Indian farmers who were unfairly denied loans by the Agriculture Department.

Israel Antiquities Authority created an online archive of high-resolution images of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls. Images of each of the scrolls’ 30,000 fragments will soon be freely accessible on the Internet.

A gunman using what investigators believe was a high-velocity rifle fired up to seven shots at the Pentagon, shattering two windows but injuring no one. No suspects have yet been identified.

Chinese rescuers freed a man after he got his arm stuck in a toilet pipe in an attempt to retrieve his mobile phone. Emergency workers in eastern China found the man crouched over the toilet with his entire arm submerged in the drain. They broke the porcelain bowl with crowbars and hammered the pipes, taking care not to injure the man. It is not clear how the man managed to call for help.

WEDNESDAY

Typhoon Megi, a "super typhoon" regained strength and headed for southern China after wreaking havoc across the northern Philippines, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 15 people.

Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission said almost a quarter of the 5.6 million votes cast in Afghanistan’s parliamentary election last month were invalid for various reasons.

Five of Chile’s 33 rescued miners proposed church weddings to their wives and girlfriends at a party in the seaside town of Caldera in far northern Chile. Miner Esteban Rojas had vowed to marry his wife in church 25 years after their civil ceremony.

Compiled by Gazette staff from a variety of sources.