News in Brief

UN concerned over Aussie asylum plan
Afp, Sydney

The United Nations on Friday said it was "troubled" by Australia's decision to send asylum-seekers arriving by boat to Papua New Guinea given that conditions there failed to adequately protect refugees.
In its first assessment of the hardline policy announced a week ago by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it was concerned greater numbers of asylum-seekers could be sent to the poor and developing nation.
Australia resumed sending asylum-seekers offshore to PNG's Manus Island and the Pacific state of Nauru in 2012 in a bid to deter record numbers of asylum-seekers arriving by boat. Hundreds have drowned making the perilous journey.

Ohio kidnapper pleads guilty
Afp, Chicago

An American man who kidnapped three women and held them for a decade as sex slaves yesterday agreed to serve life in prison in a deal that allows him to escape the death penalty. The deal allows him to avoid the death penalty.
Ariel Castro, a 53-year-old Ohio bus driver, told a court in Cleveland that he had agreed to serve a life sentence plus 1,000 years for a string of violent and sexual offenses.

Strauss-Kahn to face pimping trial
Afp, Lille

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn will face trial on pimping charges along with 12 others over an alleged prostitution ring in the French city of Lille, prosecutors said yesterday.
Strauss-Kahn was charged last year with "aggravated pimping as part of an organised gang" in the so-called "Carlton affair" -- one of a string of lurid cases that came to light after he resigned from the IMF over an alleged sexual assault on a New York hotel maid.