Bang! Ka-Ching!

PLYMOUTH - In the British Ministry of Defence's latest move to cut costs, naval recruits serving at HMS Cambridge, a shore base that serves as the Royal Navy's gunnery school, are no longer firing ammunition. At gunnery practice they check coordinates, line up on the target and prepare to fire, but when the big moment comes they all shout "Bang!" Although sailors complain that it's like schoolyard days again, spokesmen for the Navy point out that this does save MOD more than $2 million per year, and that local people and fisherman are happy because there is much less noise. (The Daily Telegraph)

Spanish Moss in the Sunset

MADRID - More than 60 years after the end of the Spanish Civil War, Spain and Russia agreed on June 14, 2000 to pay pensions to Spaniards still living in Russia after seeking refuge from the conflict in the Soviet era. About 3,000 Spanish children, mostly from families with Communist connections, were evacuated to the USSR to escape the 1936-39 war and remained there after General Francisco Franco's Nationalists defeated Republican forces. Most of "los Ninos de Moscu" (Children of Moscow) returned home after Franco died in 1975, but 325 remained. Many of them are now pensioners cast into poverty by the economic upheaval since the end of the Communist era. (Reuters)