World Briefs

TORONTO – Canada's largest airline is trying to figure out which obese and disabled passengers will be eligible for additional seats at no charge after the country's Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the airlines.

The Canadian Transportation Agency issued an order last January requiring Air Canada and other domestic airlines to make additional seats free to disabled or obese passengers who need extra room.

The airlines' appeal was rejected twice — first by the Federal Court of Appeal in May, and then by the country's highest court on Thursday. Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said Monday they are developing detailed eligibility rules for free seats. The ruling Thursday applies only to domestic flights and will be implemented Jan. 9, 2009.

MOGADISHU – Somali pirates holding a Saudi supertanker after the largest hijacking in maritime history have reduced their ransom demand to $15 million, an Islamist leader and regional maritime group both said on Monday.

The November 15 capture of the Sirius Star -- with $100 million of oil and 25 crew members from Britain, Poland, Croatia, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines -- has focused world attention on rampant piracy off the failed Horn of Africa state.

Scores of attacks this year have brought millions of dollars of ransom payments, hiked up shipping insurance costs, sent foreign naval patrols rushing to the area, and left about a dozen boats with more than 200 hostages still in pirate hands. The gang had originally been quoted as wanting $25 million to release the Sirius Star, which was captured far from Somali waters.

STUTTGART, Germany – One of the last members of the left-wing Red Army Faction that terrorised Germany in the 1970s still in prison will walk free in January after 26 years behind bars, a court ruled on Monday.

Christian Klar, in jail since 1982, will be freed on parole on January 3 after serving the minimum 26 years of his life sentence on nine counts of murder and 11 counts of attempted murder, the court in Stuttgart decided.

Klar, who is now 56, is one of only two surviving members of the RAF -- also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang after two of its founders, the late Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof -- still to be in prison.

He has never repented his crimes, but the court ruled on Monday that he no longer posed a danger to society.Klar turned his back on violence and now demonstrated "constructive behaviour," court spokesman Josefine Koeblitz said.The RAF declared war on what it called the morally bankrupt West German state.

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