■ United Kingdom
Face transplants planned
Surgeons are preparing to carry out an unprecedented full face transplant operation next year after being granted ethical approval to actively seek patients. The 30-strong team headed by Peter Butler, a leading plastic surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, was given the go-ahead by the hospital's bioethics committee on Thursday. The announcement follows the partial face transplant in France last month of a woman whose face was mutilated by a dog. The controversial operation has raised concerns, not least that some patients could suffer psychological trauma because their new appearance will resemble that of the donor.
■ Germany
Saluting pair arrested
Two women have been arrested for giving a Hitler salute and singing a neo-Nazi song to foreign tourists on their way to Sachsenhausen concentration camp museum, prosecutors said on Thursday. "The tour group was joined on a commuter train platform by two women who marched alongside them, sang the song White Aryan resistance and gave them the Hitler salute," the prosecutors office in Neuruppin said in a statement. The women, who were under the influence of alcohol at the time, were taken into police custody, the prosecutors said.
■ United Kingdom
Pole turns up in airport
An 84-year-old man, missing since he left home to ride his bike in the small town of Znin last week, has been found wandering around London's Heathrow airport, police said on Wednesday. "According to the family, he just took his bike and left," a police spokesman said. He said police had been searching for the man, identified as Ludwik Z, when they got a telegram from the Polish consulate in London informing them he was safe. "The family have been unable to explain how he got to London," the spokesman said.
■ Ireland
Chickens cause road chaos
A hazardous slick of broken eggs caused traffic chaos on Thursday after a truck carrying thousands of broody hens lost its load. "Chickens have begun to lay eggs on the roads and the conditions are quite treacherous at the moment, very slippy," AA Roadwatch said on its traffic advice line, warning up to 7,000 chickens were on the loose. Police said the vehicle carrying the birds may have hit a ditch, causing its boxes to "cascade off the lorry." "The lorry has been moved but the cargo is wandering around out there," Sergeant Jim Greene said, adding there were no human casualties. A team has been scrambled to help catch the birds, Greene said.
■ United Kingdom
Mistletoe running out
An outbreak of mistletoe rustling is threatening a Christmas kissing crisis, environmental experts said on Wednesday. The Wildlife Trusts said over-harvesting of the plant that only grows in the wild and is mainly found on old apple trees meant it was becoming increasingly rare. "Mistletoe is being taken in increasingly large quantities to be sold at markets to Christmas shoppers," said The Wildlife Trusts. "There are cases of mistletoe rustling, and once the whole plant has been removed from its host tree it won't grow back." The parasitic plant with white berries has been associated with fertility since the time of the ancient Druids and kissing under the mistletoe has long been a Christmas party tradition.
■ United States
Bush eyed in CIA scandal
US President George W. Bush was drawn directly into the CIA leak affair for the first time on Thursday after the journalist whose column prompted the investigation said the president knew who outed the undercover operative Valerie Plame. "I'm confident the president knows who the source is," the conservative columnist Robert Novak said in a speech earlier this week in Raleigh, North Carolina. The White House yesterday declined to respond to Novak's charges. "I don't know what he is basing it on," the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said.
■ Russia
Smelter blast injures three
An explosion in a smelter at a nuclear power plant severely injured three people, but radiation levels were normal, the state nuclear agency Rosenergoatom said yesterday. The blast occurred on Thursday at the Leningrad nuclear power plant in the town of Sosnovy Bor, outside St. Petersburg. The Emergency Situations Ministry said that two of the injured had burns over 90 percent of their bodies. A spokesman at the plant said that the blast had caused molten metal to burst out of a smelter used by a private company called Ekomet-S, which is reprocessing scrap metal on the site.
■ United States
Cursing becomes costly
Students at two Connecticut schools can either watch their language or watch their money disappear. In an effort to curb abusive language directed at school faculty, Bulkeley High School and Hartford Public High School has instituted fines for students who use foul language. Police officers stationed in the schools issue US$103 tickets to students who curse, said Miriam Morales-Taylor, principal of Bulkeley High School in Hartford. The citations are similar to speeding tickets and require a court appearance if the fine is not paid, Morales-Taylor said.
■ United States
Man gets surprise gift
An anonymous gift-giver, apparently depressed over a lost love, left a US$15,000 diamond engagement ring in somebody's else's unlocked car in a commuter parking lot near Boston. The ring was accompanied by a note which read: "Merry Christmas. Thank you for leaving your car door unlocked. Instead of stealing your car I gave you a present. Hopefully this will land in the hands of someone you love, for my love is gone now. Merry Christmas to you." A 37-year-old Northborough man found the three-diamond, white gold ring on the seat of his car, which he had parked at the train station in Westborough on Dec. 7, the MetroWest Daily News of Framingham reported on Thursday.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not