World news in brief

RUSSIA: President Vladimir Putin has voiced support for building memorials to honour Red Army soldiers who died in a 1939-40 war with Finland.

Mr Putin told a meeting of military historians that Joseph Stalin had launched the war to "correct mistakes" made in drawing the border with Finland after the 1917 revolution.

He said that the Red Army sustained heavy losses because of errors, but it mobilised to make Finland "feel all the power of the Russian, then Soviet state."

Lisbon gets extra year to pay off loans

PORTUGAL: Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar said today that the country's bailout lenders have agreed to ease its debt-reduction targets amid deteriorating economic prospects.

Portugal needed €78 billion (£67bn) in May 2011 when speculators stopped lending it money.

But austerity measures have crippled its recovery

Mr Gaspar said bailout lenders are giving Portugal an extra year to get its deficit below 3 per cent.

Madrid's debt rises to 84% of GDP

SPAIN: The central bank said today that the country's debt had risen to a record 84.1 per cent of GDP at the end of 2012.

It said the country's debt mountain at the year's end was €884 billion (£763bn), up 20 per cent on the previous year's total.

Catalonia remained the most indebted of the country's 17 regions with debts of €51bn (£44bn).

The government has said it expects its debt to rise to 90.5 per cent in 2013.

Ford chief takes 29% pay cut – to £11m

UNITED STATES: Ford Motor Company chief executive Alan Mulally took a swingeing pay cut of 29 per cent in 2012, the company said today.

But Mr Mulally still pocketed over £11m in wages, bonuses and stock options.

Ford has not given a wage increase to production-line workers since the middle of the last decade.

Instead it pays an annual bonus - or should. The bonus scheme failed to pay out anything between 2005 and 2008.

Cop arrested for alleged van-drag

SOUTH AFRICA: A police officer has been arrested for allegedly dragging a man from a police vehicle in the second such incident in recent weeks.

The police watchdog agency said that after a dispute in Lomanyang, a police officer allegedly grabbed a man and dragged him for 100 yards from a vehicle, causing foot injuries.

Separately, nine police officers were charged with murdering a Mozambican taxi driver who was dragged from a police vehicle near Johannesburg.

Staff walkout grounds 300 planes

GERMANY: More than 300 flights have been cancelled at Duesseldorf and Cologne-Bonn airports after security staff walked off the job over wage demands.

The Verdi union is seeking a roughly 30 per cent pay increase for private security workers, including about 2,000 airport security staff and 32,000 others in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Employers have offered 9 per cent.

Roadside bomb kills 3 officers

THAILAND: Suspected militants have detonated a roadside bomb that killed three police officers in the insurgency-plagued south of the country.

The explosion went off today near a bridge in Rue So district in Narathiwat province as the officers were passing in a van.

The three policemen, including a deputy commander of the district police, were on their way back from attending a school activity.

Gunmen cross border to attack village

IVORY COAST: The government said today that seven people were killed when gunmen from neighbouring Liberia crossed the river separating the two countries and attacked a village.

Four civilians, two Ivorian soldiers and one of the assailants were killed in the clashes in Zelebly.

The attack began at 4am on Tuesday and lasted many hours. Villagers in the surrounding area fled their homes as a result.

Protesters march through East Flatbush

UNITED STATES: Protesters march through East Flatbush on Thursday against the shooting of Kimani Gray.

The 16-year-old was shot to death on a Brooklyn street last Saturday night by plainclothes police officers who claimed the youth pointed a revolver at them, while the family said he was unarmed.