Locusts have swept across 70,000 hectares of desert and threaten to swarm into farmlands in the worst plague to hit the country since 1993, officials warned on Sunday. "The desert locusts have hit three provinces and 70,000 hectares are now covered by locusts but these are desert not agricultural areas," said Abdou Fareih, head of the Yemeni Locust Monitoring and Combating Center. The government has asked the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for helicopters to spray locust-infested areas. The FAO says only intensive spraying from the air will stop the locusts breeding and causing serious damage to food crops. The country imports most of its food, so damage to crops would not lead to famine, officials say.
■ UNITED STATES
`Vampire' peacock attacked
A peacock that wandered into the parking lot of a Staten Island Burger King parking lot was attacked by man who claimed the bird was a vampire, authorities said. The bird had to be euthanized after it was beaten so badly that most of its tail feathers fell out, a spokesman for the New York City's Center for Animal Care and Control said. "It's just unbelievable that someone would do something to a poor, defenseless animal and do it in such a cruel fashion," he said. The bird was perched on a car hood on Thursday morning and employees were feeding it bread when the man appeared. He seized the bird by the neck, hurled it to the ground and started kicking and stomping on the creature, claiming it was a vampire, eyewitnesses said.
■ UNITED STATES
Pig parts grease highway
A busy section of the Edens Expressway in Chicago was closed for seven hours on Sunday after a truck tipped over and spilled pig ears, pig feet and grease. The greasy pig parts created slippery conditions and forced the closure of northbound lanes. A sudden shift in the truck's load caused it to tip onto its side, Illinois Department of Transportation spokesman Mike Claffey said. Hassan Ware, 39, was cited for driving too fast for conditions and spilling his load on a highway, state police said. Clean-up crews used sand to absorb the grease, sprayed a foam usually used in hazardous materials situations and spread rock salt to provide more traction, Claffey said.
■ EGYPT
Convicted spy dies in jail
An engineer who was convicted in 2002 of spying for Israel died in jail on Sunday while serving a 15-year sentence, security sources said yesterday. The cause of his death was unclear, sources said. Sherif al-Filali, believed to be in his early 40s, had initially been found innocent of espionage in 2001, when the judge called him a true patriot because he turned himself in as soon as he realized he might have been involved in a crime. But President Hosni Mubarak threw out the acquittal and ordered a retrial in an emergency state security court, where Filali was convicted in 2002 of trying to collect military information and other data for Israel.
■ UGANDA
Plastic bag ban takes effect
A ban on plastic bags took effect on Sunday to cut down the piles of rubbish that litter the capital and other urban areas, breeding germs and poisoning water supplies. Officials want people to use banana leaves, the traditional material for carrying goods, instead. The ban followed a similar one on Tanzania's Zanzibar islands last year. Companies are now barred from making, importing or using plastic bags.
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