China jails five for abducting and selling children. A court in the Chinese province of Guangdong has jailed five people for up to 14 years for abducting and selling eight children, state media said. The eight, all boys, were kidnapped from villages near the town of Dongguan from August 2005, the official Xinhua news agency said. In April, police caught a ringleader in the province of Fujian and rescued one the boys which in turn led to the other children and their kidnappers. The convicted «usually coaxed the children playing outside with snacks and then abducted them,» the agency said. «They induced adolescents to abduct children and paid them 100 yuan ($13.6) to 1,000 yuan.» The children were sold for 13,000 yuan each, it added, without saying what had happened to the people who had bought them.

Campaigner Bob Geldof calls for more nuclear power. Anti-poverty campaigner Bob Geldof joined the global warming debate yesterday with a call for the rapid expansion of nuclear power, describing renewable energy as a ?Mickey Mouse" answer to the climate crisis. The Irish former rock star, known for his campaigning on poverty relief in Africa, was writing on a blog set up by carmaker Lexus to promote hybrid road vehicles. ?The reality is that we need to do much more than change the type of car we drive to make an impact on climate change. In the UK, we'll soon have to scramble for more nuclear power,? Geldof wrote. ? We may mess around with wind and waves and other renewable energy sources, trying to make them sustainable, but they're not?. The comments are unlikely to endear him to the environmental lobby which condemns nuclear power as dirty, dangerous and expensive. For its part the nuclear power industry says it is at least part of the answer to global warming caused by emissions of carbon gases from burning fossil fuels for power and transport.

Teen caller tricks White House. A teenager says he convinced the White House he was Iceland's president and managed to schedule a call with George W. Bush but was found out before he got to talk to the US president. ?My call was transferred around a few times until I got hold of Bush's secretary and managed to book a call meeting with Bush the following Monday evening,? Vifill Atlason, 16, told Reuters. The teenager posed as Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson when he made the call on Dec 1. Icelandic police turned up at his door two days later -- the day of the planned call -- and took him in for questioning. ?They told me the CIA had called the National Commissioner of the Icelandic police and asked if they could try and find out where I received that phone number from,? said Atlason.

Singapore PM to get 21% pay raise in 2008. Singapore?s politicians, already among the best paid in the world, will get a salary hike next year with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong enjoying a 21 % rise to S$3.76 million ($2.61 million), state radio said yesterday. PM Lee is already paid five times that of U.S. President George W. Bush. Earlier this year, annual ministerial salaries were hiked by about 60 % to an average S$1.9 million. President S.R. Nathan will receive S$3.87 million next year, while members of parliament, most of whom hold full-time jobs outside politics, will get an allowance of S$225,000 a year, according to the report on 938LIVE radio. Singapore politicians peg their salaries to those of the country's highest-paid doctors, lawyers, bankers... The hike earlier this year prompted an outcry among Singaporeans who earn smaller pay increases. Singapore's GDP per capita of $29,000 is only second to Japan in Asia, but its income inequality is more in line with third-world countries.