Police, protesters stop gay pride event

Russia

MOSCOW -- Gay rights activists were pummeled by right-wing protesters and detained by police yesterday, preventing them from expressing gay pride in defiance of a city ban. Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said in a radio interview that gay parades ``may be acceptable for some kind of progressive, in some sense, countries in the West, but it is absolutely unacceptable for Moscow, for Russia." Yesterday was the 13th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Russia . (AP)

China

BEIJING -- A Chinese researcher in The New York Times Beijing bureau will be tried next month over allegations of fraud and divulging state secrets despite a court's earlier decision to drop the charges, his lawyer said yesterday. The trial of Zhao Yan, 44, was to begin June 8 in Beijing after the charges were refiled, the lawyer , Mo Shaoping, said . (Washington Post)

Germany

BERLIN -- A knife-wielding German teenager in a drunken frenzy stabbed at people leaving a ceremony to dedicate Berlin's new central rail station just before midnight Friday and injured 28 before he was stopped. Six of those injured in the 10-minute long attack on a crowded street in the center of Berlin were in serious condition, police said . The attack stunned Germany less than two weeks before the World Cup soccer tournament opens, and cast a shadow over the station celebration and fireworks, which some 500,000 people attended. (Reuters)