WARSAW: Polish divers exploring an eighteenth-century English wreck under the Baltic sea have found a legible book and other relics preserved by the vessel's cargo of tar, PAP news agency reported yesterday. It said the divers had penetrated the hull of the General Carleton of Whitby, built in 1777, which sank of the mouth of the Piasnica river in 1785.
Finds include the ship's bell bearing the three-master's name, a whisky bottle, pistols, a sailor's uniform and a leather-bound manual on navigation which should prove readable, museum director Andrzej Zbierski was quoted as saying.
Ceasefire signed
ASHGABAT: The opponents in a long-running civil war in Tajikistan signed a ceasefire agreement yesterday which a UN mediator said could bring stability to the volatile region. The ceasefire, signed on neutral territory in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat, was due to take effect at noon today. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in four years of fighting between the pro-Moscow Government and the rebels in the remote Central Asian state bordering Afghanistan and China.
Landslide deaths
KATHMANDU: Landslides killed 18 people in Nepal on Thursday, raising the number of deaths from a week of torrential rains and flooding in the Himalayan kingdom to 46, officials said yesterday. Monsoon rains have also lashed east and northeast India for the past fortnight, where flooding and giant mudslides have claimed 115 lives and forced about 2.5 million people from their homes.
Rail boss quits
PARIS: The chairman of France's SNCF state railways group, Loik Le Floch-Prigent, quit yesterday after a court ruled that he must remain in custody in a corruption investigation. The Transport Ministry, which announced his resignation, is expected to name a replacement candidate soon.
Church strippers
COLOGNE: An exhibitionist couple entered Cologne's famous cathedral yesterday, walked up to the altar and peeled off their clothes to reveal nothing more than a pair of ``Adam and Eve''-style plant leaves covering their shame. A group of photographers caught the couple's antics on camera before cathedral officials asked them to leave.
Berlin memory
WASHINGTON: As the summer Olympics began in Atlanta, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum yesterday opened an exhibition on the 1936 Berlin Olympics and its use by Adolf Hitler as propaganda for his Nazi regime. The exhibit includes pictures, posters, newsreels, and newspaper clippings about the Berlin games and interviews with some of the participants.
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