Monitor: Miscellaneous Stories from around the world

All the News of the World

Copenhagen Post

Denmark

IT WAS a gay day in all senses of the word in Copenhagen when ex-MP Torben Lund wedded his live-in boyfriend, sociology student Claus Lautrup. Emerging from the capital's Town Hall into bright sunlight and a shower of rice, Lund, currently standing as a Social Democrat Euro-MP candidate, said: "A politician in love is just the same as anybody else. We married for practical reasons as well, but mainly because we're in love." Lund and Lautrup came out together officially for the first time as guests of the Queen at a royal ball last spring. Since Denmark introduced the law permitting homosexual marriages in 1989, almost 5,000 gay men and 3,000 lesbians have tied the knot.

Phnom Penh Post

Cambodia

AN EXPLOSIVE disposal team has detonated the largest bomb ever found in Cambodia. The 2,000-lb device was probably dropped by US forces in 1943 in a raid against Japanese naval operations. Workers at a brick factory thought that they had hit a rock when digging for clay in the bottom of a pond. If the bomb had detonated, the supply of Coca-Cola in the country could have been affected. The bottling plant was within the device's blast range of 800 metres.