The foreign ministers of Switzerland and Spain were in Libya on Sunday hoping to bring home a Swiss businessman stranded there for nearly two years and draw a line under a damaging diplomatic row.
Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey and her Spanish counterpart Miguel Angel Moratinos, whose country holds the EU presidency, flew into Tripoli soon after midnight and were in talks with Libyan officials. Their mission was arranged after the release from a Libyan prison last week of Max Goeldi, the Swiss businessman at the centre of the dispute. He served four months in jail but had been barred from leaving Libya.
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Film shoot cancelled near White House
London, June 13: US director Michael Bay has been denied permission to film action sequences for the third instalment of his successful sci-fi Transformers near the White House. Imdb.Com reports that the filmmaker wanted to stage a car-chase sequence in and around the National Mall, an open-area national park in central Washington, but his request has been turned down by city officials and security experts. Bill Line, a spokesperson for the Park Service, confirmed Bay was told his plans would have to change. “A lot of this could be more appropriately shot in a Hollywood studio. The National Mall is not an area in which Americans come to see high-tech action movies being shot,” said Mr Line.
—IANS