■ Singapore
Berkeley welcomes students
Students traveling from Singapore are free to attend summer classes at the University of California, Berkeley, after the institution relaxed its travel restrictions, its Web site said yesterday. The prestigious school announced on Monday that it was barring new students from Singapore, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong from attending summer classes because of the large number of SARS cases reported in those areas. UC Berkeley said it lifted the ban on Singapore after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took the city-state off its travel advisory list.
■ Australia
Police act against runaway
Australian police have started legal proceedings against a teenage girl who reappeared last month after being mourned for nearly five years as the victim of a serial killer. Natasha Ryan, whose disappearance in September 1998, aged 14, sparked a massive and costly police hunt, was found hiding in her boyfriend's house after an anonymous tip-off as her accused murderer went on trial. A spokesman said police took action in a Brisbane court on Thursday to start proceedings against Ryan and her boyfriend, 27-year-old milkman Scott Black, for wasting police time.
■ Saudi Arabia
Police seek plotters
Saudi Arabia has linked 19 men wanted on terrorism charges to the al-Qaeda group and offered a reward of up to 300,000 riyals (US$80,000) for information leading to their capture. Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz told the al-Riyadh newspaper in remarks published on Thursday that the group, on the run after a shoot-out with security forces in the capital Riyadh on Tuesday, was al-Qaeda-related . "Yes ... but in order to be 100 percent sure, we must arrest them and verify this," Prince Nayef said. Saudi police said on Wednesday they were hunting 17 Saudis, one Yemeni and one Iraqi with Canadian and Kuwaiti passports to face terrorism charges after the shootout.
■ Germany
Chicken flu discovered
German veterinary officials were to start slaughtering 32,000 chickens yesterday after uncovering what they believe may be the first case of a highly contagious flu that has already ravaged Dutch and Belgian poultry farms. Tests on a farm in Viersen, near the Dutch border in western Germany, have raised a "serious suspicion" that bird flu may have crossed the frontier, the district authority said. All poultry within 1km of the farm were ordered to be slaughtered as a precaution, nearby roads were sealed off and a disinfection point set up at the entrance.
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