■ Hong Kong
Piglet buyers conned
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) said pet lovers who had bought piglets in hopes of some Year of the Pig luck may have been conned by shop owners who actually sold them rodents instead. The group said on Wednesday that it had been contacted by people asking for care tips for what they described as mini-piglets. "But when we went to the shops we couldn't find any such piglets for sale," said SPCA spokeswoman Rebecca Ngan. "We think that what they bought instead was a type of hairless rodent that looks like a pig." The South China Morning Post cited shops that were selling mini-pigs for up to HK$15,000 (US$1,920).
■ Afghanistan
Bird flu outbreak reported
Authorities were culling poultry after an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in chicken in an eastern city, a UN official said Wednesday. Bird flu was reported in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar, said Serge Verniau, the country representative of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. Samples of chicken in the Nangarhar provincial capital of Jalalabad were found to have the H5N1 strain, while the exact type of the outbreak in Kunar has yet to be confirmed, Verniau said.
■ Japan
Woman guilty of dog theft
A woman was convicted on Wednesday of stealing a prized dog and then throwing the pet to its death from her sixth-floor balcony when she was caught. The woman was given a one-year prison sentence, but it was suspended for three years because she voiced remorse and has a child to care for. According to the ruling, Akemi Takami, 39, stole the French bulldog after spotting it tied on a leash in a parking area as the dog's owner was shopping in the northern city of Sapporo. Takami stole the dog because she could not afford to buy one, the Sapporo District Court said.
■ New Zealand
Begging study released
People will not give money if they are thanked in advance or presented with an empty donation box, but will dig deep if they see banknotes, according to a study by academics released on Wednesday in Welllington. The research by Victoria University of Wellington's economics department showed that how much is already in a donation box, the mix of coins and notes, and what sorts of signs are present will influence how generous the public will be. The behavior of people faced with a clear donation box at the entrance to the city's art gallery was filmed by a hidden camera. "The most important thing is to never leave the box empty," senior lecturer John Randal
said.
■ Australia
Author makes comparison
Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee has compared the modern treatment and slaughter of animals to the Nazis' mass murder of Jews. The South African-born author, who is now an Australian citizen, made the comparison in a speech prepared for delivery at the opening in Sydney yesterday of an art exhibition entitled "Voiceless: I feel therefore I am." The Holocaust was a "warning on the grandest scale that there is something deeply, cosmically wrong with regarding and treating fellow beings as mere units of any kind," Coetzee said, in an extract published in the Sydney Morning Herald.
■ Colombia
Clowns gunned down
Two clowns were shot and killed by an unidentified gunman during their performance at a traveling circus in the eastern town of Cucuta, police said on Wednesday. The gunman burst into the Circo del Sol de Cali on Monday night and shot the clowns in front of an audience of 20 to 50 people, local police chief Jose Humberto Henao told reporters. One of the clowns was killed instantly and the second died the next day in hospital. Circo del Sol de Cali pitched its tents in Cucuta earlier this month. "The clowns came out to give their show and then this guy came out shooting them," one audience member told local television.
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