■ Hong Kong
Smuggled chickens seized
Officials have seized about 6,000 live chickens being smuggled into the territory from China, the government said. The seizure on Tuesday highlights the challenges the territory faces as it tries to protect against the threat of bird flu spreading from mainland China, where several outbreaks have been reported in the past year. The 6,000 birds were found in two containers at a cargo handling area, the government said in a statement. The truck driver surrendered the birds, which were then destroyed, it said. Laboratory tests run on samples from the chickens showed no sign of bird flu.
■ China
Wedding guests hospitalized
Fifty people were hospitalized with food poisoning after eating a catered meal at a wedding banquet, state media said yesterday. No one was reported dead from the incident on Sunday in Shaanxi Province's Hua County, the official Xinhua news agency said. About 200 people attended the wedding, which was catered by a local restaurant in the township of Guapo, it said. It said 23 of the 50 people who became sick shortly after eating at the banquet were released from hospital by Tuesday, while another 27 were still being held for observation.
■ China
Election protesters arrested
Police have arrested three residents of Shadui village, Hong Kong's Ming Pao Daily News reported. Allegedly upset because the local government failed to issue certificates that would allow them to vote in a village election, Shadui villagers scuffled with police two weeks ago. The three were arrested when they protested again in a follow-up demonstration.
■ China
Elderly Catholic priest freed
An elderly bishop belonging to China's underground Roman Catholic Church has been released after spending more than 10 months in police custody, a Vatican-affiliated missionary news agency reported on Tuesday. Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo (賈治國), 70, has returned to his home in Zhengding and has been free to receive visits from priests of his diocese, AsiaNews said. Government agents seized Jia on Nov. 8, arresting him for the eighth time in two years. AsiaNews reported that during his latest detention the bishop was interrogated and pressured to adhere to the Communist Party-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association, which rejects Vatican authority.
■ China
Teachers ditch marriages
Chinese education officials have scrapped a plan to trim jobs that allowed teachers who have children but not spouses to continue working. The plan prompted a rash of divorces, a Chinese newspaper said yesterday. The plan to cut teaching jobs at primary and middle schools in Dandong, Liaoning Province, had resulted in 41 teachers at a single school filing for divorce in a week, the Shanghai Daily reported. "In comparison, their town had a total of 34 couples who divorced in the whole of 2005," the paper said. The numerous divorces alerted officials, who suspended the plan and persuaded 39 of the 41 teachers to re-marry their former spouses, it said.
■ Italy
Tarantulas' silky secret
Tarantulas secrete sticky silk from their feet to help them adhere to shiny surfaces, scientists have learned. Spiders are already known to have two mechanisms that give them their ability to walk upside or cling to smooth vertical surfaces. One is the use of thousands of tiny hairs that generate a weak electrical bond -- called the van der Waals force -- with the surface. Another is tiny claws that lock onto rough surfaces. But scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart have now found -- in tarantulas, at least -- a third gripping tool: microscopic nozzle-like structures on their feet that secrete a viscous silk-like filament.
■ Italy
Man bites off ear at airport
An airport spokesman said on Tuesday that Raffaele Artesi, an Italian musician, had been due to fly to Naples with his band on Monday for a news conference to present a new tour. But because of overbooking, only six of the band's 11 members were able to board the Alitalia plane, with Artesi and the others stranded in the northern city of Turin. A row with airport workers ensued. Artesi was arrested for the attack on Davide Ruzza, whose left ear lobe was left dangling after being almost bitten off. "After 16 years, I will certainly change job," Ruzza said from the hospital.
■ Turkey
General issues warning
Defying EU demands for the military to keep out of politics, General Ilker Basbug, chief of Turkey's land forces, issued a stinging attack on the center-right government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan by warning that the danger of Islamism in the country was reaching "alarming" levels. "The Turkish armed forces have always taken sides and will continue to do so in protecting the national state, the unitary state and the secular state," Basbug told a ceremony for cadets at a military academy in Ankara.
■ United Kingdom
Sex archives unveiled
Historical attitudes to sex in Britain will be laid bare for all to see this week in archives which reveal a nation rich in sexual experience and enthusiasm. The historical documents, to be given a public outing by the Center for Archive Studies at Liverpool University, include Britain's first ever sex survey, conducted 57 years ago but deemed too shocking for publication at the time. It shows that many British men had homosexual experiences, many were frequent visitors to prostitutes and many British wives pursued sex outside marriage. The archives also have details of public displays of sexual behavior in the 1930s.
■ United Kingdom
Banned driver gets jail
A driver who failed to summon help after his girlfriend was thrown through a windshield in a high-speed crash was sent to prison on Tuesday for an indefinite period. Andrew Bennett had pleaded guilty to manslaughter, perverting the course of justice and driving while disqualified in the death of Kirsty Cash. Prosecutors said Bennett had been smoking marijuana and drinking before the accident in April. When he saw one of his passengers dialing a mobile phone for help, he reportedly shouted: "Don't phone them. I'm a banned driver and I'm not getting done for this." Instead, Bennett called friends who drove the injured girl to his home, resulting in an hour's delay calling emergency services that led to her death.
■ Mexico
Police hunt accused priest
Police in the state of Puebla began searching on Tuesday for a Roman Catholic priest accused of molesting children in Los Angeles, although they lack an arrest warrant, officials said. Reverend Nicolas Aguilar, charged in California with 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child, reportedly conducted Mass earlier this month in a small village in Puebla, which borders Mexico City. Puebla Interior Secretary Javier Lopez said detectives and local police were working with church officials to find Aguilar. "We have sent our agents and the local police to help us find him," Lopez told reporters.
■ United States
Funeral law ruled too broad
Kentucky's state law forbidding protests within 90m of military funerals and memorial services was suspended temporarily after a federal judge ruled it was too broad. The law passed earlier this year was aimed at members of a Topeka, Kansas, church who have toured the US protesting at military funerals. The Westboro Baptist Church claims the soldiers' deaths are a sign of God punishing the US for tolerating homosexuality. US District Judge Karen Caldwell wrote on Tuesday that the law could restrict the free speech rights of people in nearby homes, sidewalks and streets.
■ Chile
Morning-after pill hits stores
The nation began supplying morning-after pills to girls as young as 14 this week under a program that has created an uproar in the politically leftist but socially conservative country, which still outlaws all abortions and only legalized divorce two years ago. The liberalized contraceptive policy is close to the heart of President Michelle Bachelet, a socialist physician who took office as Chile's first female president in March vowing to promote equality between men and women. "Equality means that for a person who does not have choices, who does not have options, we have to give them these options," Bachelet told reporters last week.
■ Mexico
Electoral institute fights back
The Federal Electoral Institute on Tuesday posted 300 tally sheets from July's disputed presidential election on the Internet in an effort to win back public confidence. The publication of the sheets from each of the country's 300 districts, "strengthens the transparency of the electoral process," the institute said in a news release. Ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon defeated leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador by less than 0.6 percent in the election -- the closest in history. Lopez Obrador has claimed election officials conspired with President Vicente Fox to rig the election, calling them "criminals." He has promised to form a parallel government funded by donations.
■ Argentina
New history book announced
A new history book describing how Britain illegally "colonized" the Falkland Islands is to be distributed to every secondary school pupil in the nation, the education ministry announced on Tuesday. The book accuses British forces of arriving secretly on the islands in the 18th century and taking it by force from the Spanish. Since then the British have refused offers to discuss the islands' sovereignty with Argentina, the book claims. "After the expulsion of Argentinean officials and those living on the islands, the English government, in 1834, assigned a navy official to remain on the islands and in 1841 it took the decision to colonize them," pupils will learn.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the