NICOSIA (Reuters) – A Manchester-bound aircraft with 208 people on board made a forced landing in Cyprus yesterday after the pilot reported an engine problem, Cypriot airport authorities said. The XL Airways flight from the Egyptian tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to Manchester was forced to land at Cyprus’s Larnaca airport at 1.50 a.m. (local time), after reporting a problem about 50 minutes earlier. “The captain of the aircraft informed authorities one of the engines stopped working and requested permission to land,” a spokesman for Cyprus airport operator Hermes Airports told Reuters.

THE HAGUE (AFP) – Two Bosnian Serb cousins accused of burning some 140 Bosnian Muslims to death during the 1992-1995 war went on trial yesterday before the UN war crimes court in The Hague. Milan Lukic, 40, and his 47-year-old cousin Sredoje are accused of 21 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, repeated beatings of prisoners and persecution of the Muslim population in the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad.

Romanians have a right to doom and gloom, the country’s constitutional court ruled yesterday, blocking a government move obliging radio and television stations to broadcast good and bad news in equal proportions. The court ruled that a new law, which stipulated that upbeat news should make up half of all newscasts on Romania’s radio and television stations, was unconstitutional. The senate had passed it unanimously the previous month. “News is news,” said council chairman Rasvan Popescu. (AFP)

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice received Bulgaria’s highest honor yesterday for helping secure the release of six medics in Libya last year. “I’m glad and pleased to have played a role,” she said after being given the “Order of Stara Planina” medallion. “It was indeed a terrible ordeal but one I’m glad has ended.” (AP)