London: Scotland Yard berates tell-all book on Diana

A tell-all book about Princess Diana by a former police bodyguard has outraged Scotland Yard and upset her mother and royal family members.

Although several books have been written about Diana since her death in a Paris car crash on Aug. 31, 1997, Ken Wharfe is the first personal guard to write a royal biography.

The book, “Diana: Closely Guarded Secret,” chronicles Wharfe’s six years at the princess’s side and gives details of the troubled relationship between Diana and Prince Charles, and her romance with cavalry officer James Hewitt.

Scotland Yard chief Sir John Stevens said he was mortified by the book, describing it as a betrayal.

According to The Daily Mail tabloid, Scotland Yard was considering whether it could force the book to be removed from the market and destroyed, and Wharfe’s profits to be confiscated.

Moscow: Defense minister says missile hit helicopter

Russia’s defense minister said Friday that a shoulder-fired missile brought down a military helicopter in Chechnya earlier this month, killing 118 people.

Sergei Ivanov said there were “no doubts” a missile caused the fiery Aug. 19 crash just outside Khankala, the Russian military headquarters near the Chechen capital, Grozny.

“It has already been established without any doubts that the Mi-26 helicopter was shot down by a missile from a portable surface-to-air anti-aircraft system,” Ivanov said in televised comments.

He also laid blame on defense ministry personnel who had prepared the flight, saying they “committed the most severe violations of orders and regulatory documents.” He promised they would be punished, but did not elaborate.

Moscow: Navy found culpable in Russian sub disaster

Numerous safety lapses, technical errors, bad management and simple sloppiness may have contributed to the devastating explosions that sank the Russian submarine Kursk and resulted in the deaths of all 118 men aboard, according to an account of a lengthy investigation into the August 2000 disaster.

The exhaustive, four-page expose, published Thursday in the official newspaper Rossiskaya Gazeta, amounted to a scathing condemnation of the corruption-ridden Russian navy and the investigation that followed. Coming almost two years after the Kursk sank, the report was as close as President Vladimir Putin’s government has come to a public accounting for the disaster.

The newspaper said there were five submarines, about 20 surface ships, two airplanes and 11 helicopters in the vicinity of the Kursk that could have been mobilized but never were.

Sweden: Police believe suspect planned to hijack plane

Police on Friday accused a man of planning to hijack a plane after a handgun was found in his carryon luggage as he prepared to board a flight from Sweden to England.

The suspect, a 29-year-old Swedish citizen, was in a group of people headed to an Islamic conference in Birmingham, England, according to police in Vaesteraas, 60 miles northwest of the capital, Stockholm.

Security officers found the weapon in a toiletries bag when they scanned the man’s hand luggage on Thursday, police spokesman Ulf Palm said.

Palm earlier said the man was a native of Tunisia, but police determined that he was born in Sweden to parents believed to be from the North African nation.

Police were holding the suspect on a preliminary charge of planning to hijack a plane. A hearing will be conducted in a few days to determine if the man should be kept in custody while prosecutors decide whether to file formal charges.

Toronto: Canadian officials report 3 West Nile virus cases

Ontario health officials said Friday they believed three people sick in the province had the West Nile virus, which would be Canada’s first human cases of the mosquito-born illness that has killed 24 people in the United States this year.

Colin D’Cunha, the Ontario chief medical officer, said final confirmation would take another two weeks.

Ontario is Canada’s most populous province, and is across the border from U.S. states where the mosquito-borne virus has been reported.

If the three have the virus, it would document the continuing spread of West Nile throughout North America.