News in Brief

Myanmar opium production soars
Afp, Yangon

Opium production in Myanmar soared this year to its highest level in over a decade, the UN said yesterday, with poor poppy farmers increasingly reliant on the crop in unrest-hit borderlands.
Myanmar, the world’s second largest opium producer after Afghanistan, saw a 26 percent leap in production this year. It said the 870 tonnes estimated to have been produced in the country in 2013 was the largest since UN and government monitoring began in 2002.

Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs dies
Afp, London

Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, whose escape from jail and decades spent on the run made him one of Britain’s most notorious criminals, died yesterday at the age of 84, media reports said.
Biggs was part of a gang that robbed the mail train from Glasgow to London on August 8, 1963, seizing £2.6 million — the equivalent of £46 million today.
Biggs sentenced to 30 years for the crime but  escaped after 15 months from a London and settled in Rio. There he had a son, Michael, by a Brazilian girlfriend which ensured him immunity from extradition back to Britain.

Two tickets wins $636m US lottery
Afp, Washington

Who needs Santa Claus when you hold one of two winning tickets announced in the $636 million Mega Millions lottery in the United States?
The life-changing stubs for the second richest pot in American lottery history were sold in San Jose, California at a gift shop and at a newsstand in Atlanta, Georgia, CBS news reported, quoting lottery officials after the Tuesday night draw. The jackpot will be split. The names of the winners were not immediately announced.

‘Hottest November in 134 years’
Afp, Washington

The month of November was the hottest experienced on Earth since record-keeping began in 1880, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday.
The finding was based on globally averaged land and ocean surface temperatures last month, NOAA said in a statement. The average temperature was 0.78 Celsius (1.40 Fahrenheit), above the 20th century average of 12.9 Celsius (55.2 Fahrenheit), NOAA said.