World datelines

Chile: Indictments tossed

SANTIAGO — Chile's Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out embezzlement indictments that led to the brief detention of the widow and four children of late dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Justice Eduardo Chaigneau said a court panel voted 5-0 that Gen. Pinochet's widow and children could not be accused of embezzling government funds because they had never been government employees.

France: Chirac faces charges

PARIS — Alleged wrongdoing in Jacques Chirac's past came back Wednesday to trouble his retirement, when a judge took the unprecedented step of filing preliminary embezzlement charges against the former two-term president of France.

Chirac insisted he had committed no wrongdoing.

France: Smoke ban protested

PARIS — Some 10,000 people, mainly tobacco sellers, marched through Paris on Wednesday to protest a smoking ban in French cafes as of Jan. 1.

The demonstrators want a modification to the decree so that smoking rooms with ventilation can be set up in the establishments.

Ireland: Jellyfish kill salmon

DUBLIN — The only salmon farm in Northern Ireland has lost its entire population of more than 100,000 fish, worth some $2 million, to a spectacular jellyfish attack, its owners said Wednesday.

The Northern Salmon Co. Ltd. said billions of jellyfish — in a dense pack of about 10 square miles and 35 feet deep — overwhelmed the fish last week in two net pens about a mile off the coast of the Glens of Antrim.

Russia: Head scarves called for

GROZNY — The president of Chechnya has called for all women to cover their heads with scarves, the latest in a series of his unofficial orders toughening social customs for women in the violence-wracked, mainly Muslim Russian region.

The recommendation by President Ramzan Kadyrov during a TV address last week was not a legally binding order or legislation passed by the regional parliament.

Sri Lanka: 9 rebels killed

COLOMBO — Soldiers killed nine Tamil Tiger rebels in several clashes in northern Sri Lanka on Wednesday, the military said.