whilst
I was on holiday from the BBC website."
World News from the BBC
The African Union says Guinea is ready to send a battalion of soldiers to Somalia to boost the African peacekeeping force there. The AU did not give an exact number for the
contingent
, but our East Africa correspondent says it could be as many as 1,700 soldiers. That would take the number of peacekeepers in Somalia to just over 8,000, the figure originally pledged by the AU.
Switzerland's famous tourist train, the Glacier Express, has derailed during its spectacular passage through the Alps. One person was killed and more than 40 injured. Police said most of the passengers were Japanese. The cause of the accident isn't known, and rail accidents are extremely rare in Switzerland. The last serious one in 2006 killed three people.
An unmanned solar-powered plane has set a new record by staying airborne
continuously
for more than two weeks. The plane, the Zephyr, was launched from a United States army base in Arizona. It landed safely after its British developers, QinetiQ, decided nothing would be proved by keeping it in the air any longer. Nick Higham reports.
The plane comfortably beat the previous records for continuous flight without refuelling - nine days for a piloted aircraft, just 30 hours for an unmanned craft like Zephyr. The plane is powered during the day by paper-thin solar panels on the wings and at night by lightweight batteries recharged each day.