Nation & World Digest

Paris has divorce fair

PARIS — The city of romance got a lesson in love’s hard knocks Sunday, as thousands flocked to the French capital’s first divorce fair.

In France, nearly one out of two marriages ends in divorce, according to the country’s National Institute of Demographic Studies. More than 130,000 divorces were registered in 2007, as compared to just 50,000 three decades ago.

The “New Start” trade fair aimed to tap into that booming market by bringing together 60 stands offering up both services obviously related to separation — law firms and counselors — and also more obscure disciplines aimed at helping people get back on their feet, like tarot card readers, makeover specialists and self-esteem coaches.

Bomber kills 12

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday in a market in northwest Pakistan crowded with shoppers ahead of a Muslim holiday, killing 12 people, including a mayor who once supported but had turned against the Taliban, officials said.

In the heavily guarded capital, police shot and killed another suicide bomber before he was able to detonate his explosives at a checkpoint, an officer said.

The incidents underscore the difficulty of combatting militancy in Pakistan, where the Taliban have carried out a series of attacks in recent weeks. The militants have said the assaults are meant to avenge a government offensive in South Waziristan, the main Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuary in the country.

The bomber hit as shoppers thronged a market where goats were being sold to celebrate the upcoming Muslim festival of Eid, killing the Adazi mayor, Abdul Malik, and 11 other people, including a young girl, said Sahibzada Anis, the top official in Peshawar.

Escobar’s son apologizes

BOGOTA — After notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar was killed, the son who many thought would succeed him fled Colombia, assumed a new identity and lived a low-profile life as an architect in Argentina.

The former Juan Pablo Escobar, who was 16 when his father was shot to death in 1993, is now trading anonymity for what he calls conscience, asking forgiveness for his father’s reign of terror in the documentary “Sins of My Father,” which opens at film festivals in Argentina on Thursday and Amsterdam on Nov. 19.

In a rare telephone interview last week with The Associated Press, he claimed his father’s fortune is gone and that he wasn’t part of his criminal enterprise.

He said he went public with his apology to the sons of two politicians his father ordered assassinated because of the pain his father wrought as a billionaire drug trafficker.

Escobar led the world’s leading cocaine cartel in the 1980s. He fought extradition to the United States with a violent campaign at home, ordering bombings — including one that destroyed an airliner four minutes after takeoff, killing all 107 people aboard — and the kidnapping and killing of politicians, judges and journalists who got in his way.

Minidress brings expulsion

SAO PAULO — A Brazilian university has expelled a woman who was heckled by hundreds of fellow students for wearing a short, pink dress to class — publicly accusing her Sunday of immorality.

The private Bandeirante University in Sao Bernardo do Campo, outside Sao Paulo, said 20-year-old Geisy Arruda disrespected “ethical principles, academic dignity and morality.”

Bandeirante University published newspaper advertisements Sunday accusing Arruda of attending class with “inadequate clothing” and having a provocative attitude that was “incompatible with the university environment.”

Arruda made headlines after the Oct. 22 incident, in which she had to be escorted away by police after wearing the minidress to class. She put on a professor’s white coat and left amid a hail of insults and curses.

New Scrooge is top movie

LOS ANGELES — Jim Carrey’s Scrooge collected holiday donations from movie fans with his new take on “A Christmas Carol,” which took in $31 million to open as the weekend’s top movie.

The Disney animated version of the Charles Dickens classic knocked the King of Pop out of the No. 1 spot as “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” slipped to second place with $14 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Featuring Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge and also as the three holiday ghosts that show Scrooge the error of his miserly ways, “A Christmas Carol” came in on the low end of Disney’s expectations for opening weekend.

Associated Press