Eight years' jail for 'Spider-Man' burglar

PARIS • A criminal known as "Spider-Man" was jailed for eight years on Monday for stealing five paintings worth €100 million (S$150 million) from a Paris museum.

Vjeran Tomic, 49, told investigators he broke into the Musee d'Art Moderne in May 2010 intending to take works by Fernand Leger and Amedeo Modigliani, but widened his haul when he found no alarm system worth speaking of.

None of the paintings was recovered and the court was told they had been thrown away.

REUTERS

Russia's UN envoy dies in New York

MOSCOW • Russia's combative ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Vitaly Churkin, has died suddenly in New York after being taken ill at work, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry gave no details on the circumstances of his death on Monday, but offered condolences to his relatives and said the diplomat had died one day before his 65th birthday.

Mr Churkin was a pugnacious defender of Russian policy, notably its intensive bombing of the Syrian city of Aleppo last year to crush rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.

REUTERS