IN BRIEF : Sailor rescued in spy ship farce

A Russian seaman suffering from appendicitis was winched off a spy submarine yesterday, assisted by a Royal Navy ship from the Nato exercise on which the Russians were spying.

After a bizarre exchange of signals between the submarine's base and the British embassy in Moscow, the destroyer HMS Glasgow left the manoeuvres to rendezvous with the submarine 90 miles north of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.