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A Spanish judge has charged two Somalis with piracy-related offences as their colleagues

refuse to release a Spanish boat hijacked in the Indian Ocean.
The two men have been charged with illegal detention, criminal association and armed robbery,

among other charges.
The pair, named as Abdu Willy and Raagegeesey, were arrested by Spain’s navy as they left the

Alakrana vessel.
The pirates have repeated their demand that the two arrested men be released before

negotiations for the boat begin.
The Alakrana vessel was seized in early October in the Indian Ocean and taken to the Somali

port town of Harardere, the hub of piracy in the region.
“We decided that we shall not negotiate about releasing crew and vessel until our two

comrades are freed and brought back safely to Harardere,” Hassan Abdulkadir, one of the

pirates holding the vessel, told Reuters.
Mr Abdulkadir, who said he was a relative of the two Somali men charged in Spain, said the

crew – including members from Spain, Ghana, Indonesia, Madagascar, Senegal and the Seychelles

- were in good health.
Many pirates have escaped prosecution because of doubts about the borders of jurisdiction. In

May, a court in Spain surrendered a group of Somali pirates to Kenya after trying to bring

them to Spain.
Last year, the crew of another Spanish boat was freed by pirates in the same area after a

ransom of a reported $1.2m (￡750,000) was paid, according to Somali officials.

Burt Reynolds and Willie Nelson are to join the cast of a film remake of 1980s TV hit The

Dukes of Hazzard, Hollywood trade paper Variety has reported.
Veteran star Reynolds has been lined up to play the corrupt villain, Hazzard County

Commissioner Boss Hogg.
Musician-turned actor Nelson is set for the role of the Duke family patriarch, Uncle Jesse,

Variety said.
Seann William Scott, Johnny Knoxville and Jessica Simpson have already signed up for the

film, due out in 2005.
The Dukes of Hazzard, which ran from 1979-85, was about two Duke brothers, their cousin Daisy

and car General Lee, and their battles with Boss Hogg.
Willie Nelson has combined acting with his country music career
Scott, star of American Pie, and Jackass frontman Knoxville will play the brothers Bo and

Luke Duke.
Simpson, a pop singer, will take the role of Daisy, who was known for her extremely tight and

skimpy shorts.
Reynolds was one of the most popular actors at the time the show was originally on TV after

starring in films like Deliverance, Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run.
Nelson is best known as a country musician but has also had major roles in films like Wag the

Dog, Barbarosa, Thief and Red-Headed Stranger.
The remake will be set in the present day, Variety reported – but the brothers will still

have an orange 1969 Dodge Charger car.

Singer Jessica Simpson has pulled out of a tribute to Dolly Parton after she was unhappy with

her second attempt to perform Parton’s hit song 9 to 5.
Simpson got the song’s words mixed up during a tape of the annual tribute show for the US

Kennedy Center Honors.
She recorded it a second time but was again unhappy and asked for it to be removed from the

tape.
“She really wasn’t happy with her performance,” said Simpson’s spokeswoman Cindi Berger.
“She did want it to be perfect for Dolly, who she idolises,” she added.
Simpson fled the stage after getting flustered during the first take.
“We appreciate the time and energy Ms Simpson put into this event and respect the high

standards she has for herself and that of the Kennedy Center Honors,” said the programme’s

producer, George Stevens Jr.
The annual show, which will air in the US on the CBS channel on Boxing Day, will also honour

theatre impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber, conductor and musical director Zubin Mehta, singer

Smokey Robinson and film-maker Stephen Spielberg.
Simpson, who is also an actress, released her debut album in 2000 but found worldwide fame

when her marriage to singer Nick Lachey became the subject of MTV reality show Newlyweds in

2003.
The couple divorced earlier this year after nearly four years of marriage.

Sharon Osbourne has praised her rock star husband Ozzy after he saved the family’s favourite

dog from a coyote.
Osbourne tackled the coyote when it got into the garden of their Beverly Hills mansion and

attacked Pipi, Sharon Osbourne’s beloved Pomeranian dog.
“Ozzy heard the screams and fought and got Pip out of the coyote’s mouth,” she told American

magazine US Weekly.
However,the family’s black chihuahua, Lulu, was killed in another attack.
“It’s so heartbreaking,” Sharon Osbourne said.
The family has since thrown a poisoned chicken over the garden fence in an attempt to kill

the coyotes, she added.
The Osbournes’ several dogs have featured in the fly-on-the-wall TV series about the family’s

lives. They also have a cat.
Despite Ozzy Osbourne’s heroic rescue of Pip, he is not known to find it easy living in a

house full of animals.
In the TV series, the former Black Sabbath frontman is frequently seen tripping over the pets

and swearing at them in response.

US pop star Jessica Simpson has appealed for help online after her dog was snatched by a

coyote.
Speaking on micro-blogging site Twitter, she told fans that her beloved pet – a cross between

a maltese and poodle – had been snatched.
“My heart is broken because a coyote took my precious Daisy right in front of our eyes,” she

said.
She has set up an email address for anyone with information to contact her and a reward has

been offered.
The star’s brother-in-law, Pete Wentz from the band Fall Out Boy, posted a response on his

Twitter page.
“Keep your head up. Were [sic] thinking of you,” he said.

Pop star Michael Jackson was buried as he had lived – in the media spotlight.
LaToya Jackson arrived with her family as part of a large motorcade
As night fell over Los Angeles at least two dozen cars – black, luxury vehicles with dark windows – processed past the massed ranks of media and through the gates of Forest Lane cemetery.
Inside the motorcade were members of Michael Jackson’s family – and they were more than an hour late.
A lot of the cars looked like they only contained one or two passengers.
Inside the memorial park Hollywood celebrities were waiting, including Dame Elizabeth Taylor, Macaulay Culkin and Jackson’s ex-wife Lisa-Marie Presley.
They were seated among around 200 guests on white wooden chairs arranged outside one of the many ornate buildings on this site.
Guests fanned themselves in the close heat of the night with programmes containing pictures of Michael Jackson.
When his family came in, his mother Katherine and father Joe sat down in the front row.
His sister Janet looked upset as she took her seat. Jackson’s three children sat between their grandparents and aunt.
Family members wore black arm bands. His brothers stood at the front, ready to repeat their roles as pall-bearers.

Michael Jackson’s family and fans are preparing for the worldwide premiere of his documentary film, This Is It.
The movie was pieced together from rehearsal footage for Jackson’s ill-fated run of London comeback shows.
It will be shown simultaneously in 18 countries at 0100 GMT. Members of the late singer’s family are expected at the Los Angeles premiere.
But some fans are planning to protest outside the screenings, saying the film covers up Jackson’s declining health.
The dedicated fans, who have set up a campaign called This Is Not It, are accusing concert promoter AEG Live of putting too much pressure on the star during the build up to his 50-date run at London’s O2 Arena
Jackson, who died on June 25 aged 50, had spent the previous four months rehearsing in Los Angeles.
More than 800,000 tickets had been sold for the concerts, with organisers promising one of the “most expensive and technically advanced” live shows ever.
He was just two weeks away from the opening night at the time of his death, which authorities in Los Angeles ruled a homicide.

Did Al-Qaeda draw on Jewish inspiration for its attacks of 11 September 2001? It may seem unlikely, but more than 60 years ago, Jewish militants were arrested in Paris on suspicion – as newspapers in Britain, France and the US reported at the time – of planning to bomb London from the air.
The arrested men were members of the Stern Gang (or Lehi, as it is known in Israel), a group dedicated to the overthrow of British rule in Palestine, if necessary through violence, in order to create a Jewish state.
The Stern Gang certainly had a bloody list of victims to its name. But was it also an early planner of aerial terror?
Now the son of one of those arrested says he has come up with conclusive evidence that the gang was planning only to drop leaflets, not bombs over London.
Natan Brun is an author and academic on Israeli judicial history. In 1947, he was a nine year-old boy living in the town of Bnei Brak, close to Tel Aviv.
Akiva Brun was never involved in Lehi violence, according to his historian son
On 8 September, Natan did what he always did on the way home from school. He stopped to look at the newspaper.
The second headline in Yediot Ahranot trumpeted: “The ‘London Bombers’, arrested in Paris, will be brought before an investigating judge today.”
Natan read on. More than 60 years later, sitting in his cluttered, book-lined office in Tel Aviv, he recalls what he saw.
“The report said that one of those arrested is called ‘Brown’. I knew that my father was in Paris (he had been there since the year before). But I didn’t know he was in Lehi. I thought he was a merchant or something.”
Natan ran home. He told his mother who, to his surprise, began laughing.
“She said: ‘It’s true; it’s nothing new. Your father was always in prison. When you were born in October 1937, he was sitting in Akko prison.’”
Mrs Brun may have tried to reassure her son by sounding relaxed. But the headlines were ominous.
The New York Times on 8 September: “London Air Defense on Alert Over Stern Band Bomb Scare.”
Le Monde, on 9 September: “A group of Jewish terrorists who planned to drop leaflets and bombs on London fall into a police trap.”
Le Figaro, on the same day, reported that the French police had stopped a “deplorable venture”.

Suddenly it seems the British foreign secretary is everywhere. Interviews, articles, speeches. Today David Miliband put forward one of the most forceful cases for a stronger European foreign policy ever made by a British foreign secretary.
There is a context to all this activity. The final signature on the Lisbon Treaty is expected soon and the focus is shifting to the two top jobs it will create: the President of the European Council and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs.
Firstly – the role of President. The presumed favourite is Tony Blair. Gordon Brown came out today supporting his candidacy. Yesterday David Miliband said Europe needed a president who would stop the traffic in Beijing. Today, when I interviewed him, he said “this is a time when a strong European voice is needed more than ever. This is not a time for shy and retiring violets”.
Later this week European leaders meeting in Brussels will begin discussing the two
jobs. They probably won’t fill the posts, but they may define their powers. Europe is
divided over whether it wants a charismatic figure as president bestriding the globe or a business manager who chairs summits. If the latter, then Tony Blair will probably not put his name forward. David Miliband is firmly in the camp that says that Europe must have a big hitter to sit at the same table as the Americans and Chinese.
One of several potential hurdles is that Tony Blair will be the chief witness at the Chilcot inquiry into the war in Iraq. Today David Miliband dismissed that as a problem. “Tony Blair is a retired prime minister,” he said. “He is not a threat to any party in this country.”

Claudine Maombi has been living on two frontlines at once: She is a mother and she is from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Being pregnant in some areas of sub-Saharan Africa can be as hazardous as being a civilian in a conflict zone.
But Claudine actually lives in one – she has been caught in a conflict that has cost more than five and a half million lives and lasted longer than World War II.
Claudine had to hide in some bushes to give birth.
“It was cold,” she recalls stoically. She was escaping the fighting with her husband Sebutanwa.
“There was shooting everywhere so we fled,” he remembers.
“As we ran my wife started having labour pains. All we had were the rubber glove and the razor blade. I cut the cord with the razor.”
They were lucky to have anything. An aid agency had given them an emergency “clean delivery kit”, knowing that by Western standards many deliveries in North Kivu become emergencies.
“We had no baby clothes, so I wrapped him in my scarf,” Claudine says.
Across sub-Saharan Africa, women have a one in 13 lifetime chance of dying in pregnancy and childbirth.
In DR Congo’s North Kivu, where the basic kits and tools can be in egregiously short supply, the odds are often far worse.