The Bush administration has often been accused of a purely symbolic commitment to clean energy. But even its supporters might not reject that description of its latest announcement: the torch on the Statue of Liberty, perhaps the single most famous symbol of the United States, is to be lit exclusively by wind power.

When Irina Khakamada, the femme fatale of Russia’s political opposition, decided to run against Vladimir Putin in the presidential election in 2004, she asked a Russian public-relations firm how she should ”project her brand”. A brainstorming session yielded only one sure-fire strategy: stage the kidnapping of your husband and child.

It is one of Pakistan’s great parties — a joyous spring festival in the southern city of Lahore where party-goers crowd on to rooftops under a sky filled with fluttering kites. But this year the age-old celebration of Basant has been cancelled amid worries about killer kites, knife-sharp strings and ominous threats to prosecute teenage ”terrorists”.

Nine people have been found dead in two suspected group suicides in Japan this week, despite efforts to stem an alarming rise in death pacts by people meeting over the internet. Police discovered the bodies of five men and a woman — all in their 20s — in a van in a forest in Chichibu, 80km north-west of Tokyo, on Friday.

The Vatican has disconcerted Italian politicians by endorsing a proposal by radical Muslims for a weekly ”Islamic hour” in schools with a strong Muslim presence. The Speaker of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera, said the suggestion was ”the diametric opposite of any kind of attempt at integration”.

The trains have stopped running, the big wheel no longer spins and the elephant is packing its trunk. Californian authorities have effectively shut down Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch, saying the singer has not paid wages or insurance since the end of last year.

The United States and Europe should provide troops and money for a major international peacekeeping force for Darfur, the new United Nations Deputy Secretary General, Mark Malloch Brown, said on Friday. Malloch Brown said only modern mobile forces, trained in helicopter operations, can be effective in Darfur.