Briefly World

MALAWI

Gay pair gets 14 years in prison

BLANTYRE | A judge sentenced a gay couple to the maximum 14 years in prison with hard labor under Malawi’s anti-gay laws, and crowds jeered the two men as they were driven from the court house to prison Thursday.

The harsh sentence for unnatural acts and gross indecency had been expected after the same judge convicted Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza earlier this week under laws dating from the colonial era. The case has drawn international condemnation and sparked a debate on human rights in this southern African country.

Chimbalanga, a 20-year-old hotel janitor, and his unemployed partner were arrested Dec. 27, the day after they celebrated their engagement with a party at the hotel where Chimbalanga worked - an apparent first in Malawi.

AUSTRIA

U.S. agrees to announce missile launches

VIENNA | The United States has agreed to notify other nations before it launches most ballistic-missile tests or satellites, in a measure that builds on a landmark arms agreement with Russia and is meant to encourage Moscow to reciprocate.

The American decision was contained in a confidential note made available Thursday to the Associated Press and confirmed by three diplomats familiar with the issue.

The move is less far-reaching - or binding - than the treaty signed last month by the U.S. and Russian presidents.

FRANCE

Briton visits Sarkozy on first foreign foray

PARIS | David Cameron, Britain’s new prime minister, said Thursday his government will support the eurozone’s efforts to control its debt crisis, but that he’s glad his country uses the pound, not the euro, as its currency.

On his first overseas trip since being elected, Mr. Cameron met French President Nicolas Sarkozy for a working dinner at the Elysee Palace in Paris. On Friday, Mr. Cameron travels to Germany for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

UNITED NATIONS

Darfur envoy urges peace deal this year

The top international envoy in the western Sudan region of Darfur is urging all parties to reach a peace agreement before 2011 when attention will shift to the referendum on independence for south Sudan.

Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N. and African Union special representative, urged France to do more to bring the Paris-based leader of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, Abdelwahid Elnur, to the negotiating table for a new round of talks in Qatar in June.

He also urged the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, to return to the talks.

ITALY

Naples police disrupt phony iPhone ring

ROME | Neapolitan mobsters have added another application of sorts to their flourishing trafficking in Chinese-made fakes - phony iPhones, along with counterfeit name-brand drills, chain saws and other consumer goods, Italian customs agents said Thursday as they announced they had broken up a reputed European sales network.

Besides the phony iPhones, fake labels included such well-known known brands as Bosch, Hitachi and Honda, police said.

Naples-based paramilitary tax and customs agents said police in 10 other European nations were involved in the yearlong probe, including in Spain, where a warehouse of fake consumer goods was found; Germany, where two arrests were made; as well as Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands.